Alexis
by What-Ansketil-Did-Next
Summary: When Alexis Ts'umin accidentally meets his Emperor in the Imperial Gardens his life spins out of control, setting him on a collision course with assassins, Darth Vader, and Palpatine's repressed desires. Palpatine/male!OC - adult concepts and themes, the Emperor in sexual situations, relationship between a twenty year-old and a septuagenarian. Dark.
1. The Garden of Eden

_**Alexis**_

_** or **_

**_Tragedy of an Imperial Catamite_  
**

* * *

I: THE GARDEN OF EDEN

* * *

**Disclaimer: **As always, everything belongs to George, and I am making no money

**Long Author's Note: **I started writing this story in 2006, a few months after finishing _Room with a View. _Back then, I started writing it to fill the ... _ten years pass_... moment in that story. It was very much tied to that story, plot-wise. The problem was that when I revisited it (because I found half a chapter on my laptop), I found I'd _completely forgotten_ the quite complex plot that lay behind everything. Then a friend requested I post it on livejournal and write a cut-scene which turned into _Under the Covers_ and I found a completely different story I wanted to tell with Alexis and Palpatine, exploring questions I could never have considered in 2006, and which the infrastructure (for want of a better word) of the old story could never have supported. Much of the Vader-orientated material will be changed, but those are the only major scenes that will go. Everything else will hopefully be expanded rather than deleted and minor characters will receive a better go of it than their author previously suffered them to have.

It should also be noted that I don't subscribe to the notion that the Empire was as humano-centric as its made out to be in the EU; I see the Imperial Military as being a Core human institution and having those biases, but as _none_ of Palpatine's advisors in the _Revenge of the Sith _film were human, I'm sceptical that he would implement such a policy. In another canon note, though I like having some EU flavour, Palpatine will _not_ have a legion of concubines! I mean, honestly! He's in his _seventies_ for god's sake! And, despite this story's premise I am _not_ going to let the old guy get away with more than he's capable of (emotionally or physically.

* * *

The Office of the Grand Vizier Imperial was rarely occupied. It's beautiful, Ciutric-inspired design boasted swirling patterns of stylised water on sparkling aurodium. Sate Pestage, on entering, stalled a moment in the doorway to wonder at its quiet serenity. It was only as he let himself fall into his chair - a thin slump of deep scarlet robe and headpiece with a chiselled, angular face - that he realised just how much his feet hurt and that he was still trembling. He'd almost forgotten just how catastrophic that temper - usually but a slave to its owner's durasteel will – really was.

In some ways it had been easier to deal with when Palpatine had been Supreme Chancellor. When the air stifled with barely-leashed fury, there was always another meeting which required the politician to master himself in order to seem what it was necessary for him to appear. One of the many qualities Palpatine possessed which had attracted Pestage to the service of the then Senator of Naboo was his almost total commitment to necessity. He performed best when swamped with pressing appointments, and for the chancellor's leisure his advisors always tried to arrange solitary activities which would be uninhibitive. This, admittedly punishing, schedule was optimal for other reasons besides his demeanour. Palpatine's formidable intellect was best in constant harness; otherwise that cruel streak of something akin to playfulness - which surfaced whenever he became bored - arose to spin surplus complexities within complexities which never failed to give Pestage a headache.

"Sate?" He turned to gaze at the cold face of his wife, crossing the threshold. _Do the Naboo sculpt all their citizens out of ice?_ Moteé's lilac velvet dress was effortlessly elegant against her winter-pale skin. Dark eyes assessed him from beneath fine lashes "I heard it was quite the display." She chuckled, "You aren't hurt are you?" That sweet voice almost sounded sincere... almost.

He rose and took her hand in his – thankfully it seemed to have ceased to shake. "It's not for myself that I worry," the vizier's tone was thoughtful; another hand wandered to a milky shoulder.

"You're worried about him?" she gently disengaged.

He turned away as she lent casually against the desk, her silvery earrings catching the light. "Not worried, exactly. Concerned. I know he isn't sleeping..." Moteé arched an eyebrow, a smirk hiding in the corners of her pretty mouth. "Don't look at me like that. I need to contact Amedda... no, no... Sly. She was always good at solving this kind of problem."

"You must be desperate, to go _crawling_ to Moore," her laughter tinkled, "Haven't you always said _you_ know him better than anyone else?" one could always rely on Lady Moteé Pestage to slide the blade in.

The vizier shifted in his seat, embarrassed, yet unable to take his eyes of her lovely figure. That was why he had married her in the first place, after all. And it was as he gazed at Moteé, that inspiration struck.

* * *

There were only two beings, as far as Sate could tell, who had ever captured and held Palpatine's attention and even then the vizier could not be sure if he had ever actually... well… with either of them. The first had been Khameir: a young, idiosyncratic Zabrak, who often visited Palpatine for long periods of time in the days when he had been a mere senator. The scowling, scarlet Zabrak had looked like something that had tumbled out of a death jizz club on the lower levels at 0200; lean, muscular and covered in tattoos. The senator's staff could only assume that Palpatine's interest was due to the fact that Khameir was an animal in the bedroom (as well as make rather crass jokes about Palpatine's penchant for all things red).

The second was Anakin Skywalker. Another tall, lithe young being in his twenties, Skywalker had been allowed incredible liberties with the chancellor's time. Sate couldn't count the number of occasions when he'd been forced to rearrange dozens of meetings (and once or twice even a session of the Senate) so that Palpatine could blithely announce that of course he always had time for his young friend. The lift in mood just after one of Skywalker's visits was clearly discernable, as was the pride that shone out of the chancellor's eyes as he watched the young Jedi; one could even go so far as to say that the ordinarily frigid gaze practically _sparkled_.

The grand vizier had made several efforts to introduce amenable young men of a similar mould (dashing up and comers in the navy as well as dandified courtiers) to the Emperor, by placing them in Palpatine's vicinity at official functions, but he had met with a resounding failure on every occasion. Even young Rufaan Tigellinus, whose considerable charm and precocious talent were the talk of the Imperial Court, failed to interest the Emperor. At one stage he'd gone so far as to hope that Isard – mannish enough by anyone's standards and desperate to please – would fill the role, but no such luck. Still, it meant that she owed him several favours for facilitating such encounters, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

He had told no one of his intention; although he was fairly certain that Dangor was wise to what he was doing and disapproved (Ars Dangor couldn't bear to think of any weakness in his idol). But then, it was an unspoken covenant between the two advisors that Dangor took care of the Empire and Pestage took care of the Emperor. The real danger lay in Palpatine realising what his vizier was up to, but Sate was confident that his subtle efforts at matchmaking would fall below the Emperor's notice, engrossed as he was in his own games.

These were the thoughts of the Vizier Imperial as he made his way along one of the upper colonnades looking down on the Grand Corridor, beings parting for him like schools of fish. The wondrous architecture that rose to dizzying heights around him went unnoticed. Below, citizens from all over the galaxy chattered to one another beneath the rustling leaves of the Emperor's prized ch'hala trees. Sate could never walk through without feeling as though he'd stepped into some tourist's holo-still. Here there were no storm-troopers, but guards in discrete black uniforms, well-trained and extremely polite.

It was one such guard who caught his attention now – requesting ID from a Bothan dignitary. It might have been a scene from one of Advisor Vandron's propagandistic holo-films; the guard – blond-haired and blue-eyed – was courteous to a fault. Pestage blinked, _have I seen him before?_ Leaning on the balcony, the vizier turned to a hovering assistant. "Get me that guard's name."

* * *

He awoke to a dreadful screeching and an ache that seemed to encompass his entire body. Drawing a slow breath he realized that the shrieking had stopped. The Emperor extended a withered hand to pull the covers higher, tighter around him; shivering, even though the temperature in his rooms was always perfectly adjusted. He opened saffron eyes to stare up at the ceiling: it seemed impossibly high, arches flowing upward forever. The soft morning light did not touch the bed; but Palpatine watched as it edged ever closer, creeping across the polished floor, as he allowed the tension to seep out of his ancient bones.

A droid had drawn aside the heavy drapes, leaving the monarch an uninterrupted view of his gardens. The Imperial Gardens: a bazaar of diverse horticultural wonders; his gardens. He suffered them to be available to the public in the afternoons, but for now they were his alone… and beyond them, his galaxy... Sending out wide tendrils of awareness that spanned star-systems, Palpatine closed his eyes again, spreading his hands against the smooth pillows as his mind drifted on the solar winds; a smile coaxed its way onto his lips. By itself the smile wanted for nothing, but on the Emperor's face it was no more than another twist in a grotesque set of features.

Completing his morning meditations, Palpatine shuffled out of bed, drawing a voluminous outer-cloak over himself, leaving only his hands exposed, their ivory skin taking on a moonlike glow in the half-light. A small droid helped him put on a pair of soft, black boots. The Emperor lifted a careless finger and the droid shot backward to crash into the wall, shattering.

No one disturbed him as he made his way down to the gardens. His Royal Guardsmen still stood outside his quarters. Only he, a dead architect, and the re-processed construction droids, knew about the passage to the gardens from the Royal Apartments. Even if it were discovered by some enterprising individual, the pass-codes were ludicrously complex. Palpatine leaned on his cane – more necessity than show these days - as he entered the fragrant forest, yellow eyes half-closed, dreamy.

His apprentice was being difficult again. _Surely he must understand the darkness by now? Its thrilling and chaotic nature…_ But Lord Vader still had problems with control… essentially the same problem he had with the Jedi concepts… He would not make the effort to master the Dark Side of the Force, content with simple usage… P_erhaps I push him too far?_ Palpatine considered the thought: _he was not taught from his earliest memories to regard it as an honour, an art. _A_nd though I am hard on him, I cannot discipline him as I would have Maul._ It appeared to be a sad truth of nature that the ideal apprentice did not exist. Lord Maul had been too simple; Count Dooku too steeped in the ways of the Jedi; even though he possessed beautiful control he could never have become a true sith lord… and Vader? T_he last apprentice: could it be that I have spoilt him, as a parent does his last child? _The Sith Master thought about himself when an apprentice. _Too disobedient, too strong-willed and too clever... too much a master already to take heed…_ Palpatine chuckled,_ thank the Force I never had such an apprentice! _

"This area is strictly off limits until 1430," an officious voice sounded from the other side of a fountain. A young man, perhaps twenty, a mere child, strode purposefully towards the Emperor, who looked up, startled out of his thoughts. It was as if a young sprite of nature had stepped out of the greenery; tall, his neat, black uniform doubtless giving him courage, lips set in a firm line, and blue eyes determined; the boy spoke: "I don't know how you got in, but I'm afraid I will have to arrest you for..." He stopped: mouth opening in a slow, horrified gasp of recognition.

"Quite," Palpatine replied laconically, lowering himself to rest on the rim of the fountain. _Why, he looks so much like…_

"Y-y-your M-majesty…! I…ah… I-I…" The boy was too mortified to even bow; though he would probably prostrate himself on the grass before long.

Highly amused, the Emperor decided not to punish the wretched child just yet. "I take it you have never seen your sovereign at close quarters before?"

"No, Your Majesty…" The tone was reverential, as was to be expected. But although there was a note of fear in those words, it was far outweighed by the sheer awe that seemed to hold the unfortunate physically captive, shining out of his bright, innocent eyes. It had been a long time since Palpatine had interacted with common citizens, had forgotten their gauche worship, so different from the sleek flattery of the denizens of the Imperial Court. And, he suspected, more genuine.

"And so... how do you find me?" Palpatine found himself, presumably out of habit, toying with the child.

"You… you are the most commanding person I have ever met, Your Majesty."

The Emperor smirked, while the boy smiled uncertainly, "Naturally. Now, what is a guard such as yourself doing in my gardens?"

"I was ordered here, sire, by Captain Zao of the 4th Security Division..."

Palpatine laughed; it could in no way be described as a pleasant sound. "For such a young man, you have chosen most influential enemies."

"I don't understand..."

The Emperor adopted a slightly melodramatic tone: "I fear you have been sent into this horticultural trap to be devoured by the terrible creature that prowls its glades…" Palpatine grinned, revealing desiccated teeth. "Your enemies doubtless expect me to punish you for your insolence." The boy was silent – fearful now – but awaiting for his inevitable fate with the blank stoicism of the soldier. "Fortunate then, that I will not tolerate such presumption. Come... sit." A chalk-white talon indicated the thick lip of the marble fountain. Gingerly, the lad perched on the edge, a respectable distance from the Emperor. "What is your name?" Palpatine's voice was velvet soft.

"Corporal Alexis Ts'umin, Your Majesty."

"Ts'umin...?" Palpatine mulled the name over, as if tasting it.

The corporal swallowed nervously, "My father... was an imperial governor," The Emperor did not reply, waiting for Alexis to continue: "He – ah – he died when I was seventeen."

"My condolences… May I ask why, given your background, you didn't receive higher education or training as an officer?" There was something connected with the name, some scandal or other, a memory Palpatine couldn't quite dislodge, hovering on the edge of his thoughts.

"M-m-my m-mother was... convicted of High T-treason."

_Now he remembered!_ Volara Ts'umin, wife of a governor, had been discovered leaking classified information to rebel insurgents. She managed to evade her husband's frantic efforts and disappear, leaving Governor Ts'umin to take his own life. There had been no mention of children. "And do you bear any such sympathies, young Alexis?" The flush suffusing those handsome cheeks was quite mesmerising.

The boy shook his head fervently, "N-n-no, no, sir! I could never betray you, Your Majesty. I'd_ shoot_ anyone who did!"

There was a lot of hurt there, raw and barely contained. Palpatine wasn't fool enough to assume that anger was on his behalf, but that of the son whose mother had abandoned him and caused the death of his father, ending the privileged existence the boy must have been certain would last forever. The Emperor could well understand that kind of rage and he reflected that it would be enjoyable to watch this boy shoot his rebel mother. _The blaster would tremble in those long fingers, cerulean eyes lit with tears of anger… or perhaps the hand would be steady and the eyes cold, bright with vengeance…? _"I believe you," he said lightly.

With one rushed, yet oddly graceful, movement Alexis Ts'umin seized the Emperor's right hand and kissed it. Not the subtle brush of the courtier but a harsh, grateful collision of mouth and hand. "Thank you, Your Majesty!" And looking at that face – dark blue eyes and quivering nostrils – something shifted within Palpatine. In truth, he had no desire to pull away, but did so, overriding such an uncertain and sudden impulse.

He rose from the fountain, feeling the fragrant spray emanating from the water touch his face as he turned. The boy stared up at him, apprehensive. There was something odd about this the Emperor couldn't quite place. The corporal's lips still seemed to be imprinted into his hand, causing it to itch uncomfortably. Palpatine brought his hands together, resisting the urge to move his left fingers across the back of the affected hand. _How is his simple flattery affecting me so? _Pathetic gratitude was hardly an attractive quality, yet in this instance it was strangely…

_But I should say something:_ "It is nothing, child," he splayed his right hand in benevolent invitation, "Walk with me…" It was only as Ts'umin rose that Palpatine realised the source of the niggling oddity – the only time any being sat in their Emperor's presence while their sovereign stood was when the Imperial Senate was in session. Prostration, now _that_ was a different matter. How strange that he should forget.

* * *

Corporal Alexis Ts'umin felt like a _Victory_-class SSD had just collided with his head. He returned, reeling, from the light of the gardens into the dark, glossy corridors of the Imperial Palace, completely disoriented. He didn't even remember what his orders for the rest of the day had been. Or perhaps there had been no orders, if what the Emperor had told him was true.

The Emperor was not as Alexis had imagined. His mind had supplied a truly awesome concentration of power: tall, majestic, implacable… more like Darth Vader, really. Up until now, the dark lord had been the most powerful man Alexis had ever met. Lord Vader had been overseeing his father's appointment as governor; Alexis, a child then, had been scared and hid behind his mother – not that he would _ever _admit to it.

Of course, every Imperial citizen knew what Palpatine _looked_ like… the enduring legacy of the evil Jedi. But stills and statues gave no indication of his lightness of manner, dry wit, or – most of all – those eyes that seemed to know all there was to know about everything; eyes that had seen eternity. It was a shock. Growing up under the Emperor's rule, it was easy to think of Palpatine like some elemental force, all pervading, yet hardly ever seen – as familiar, vast and insubstantial as the air one breathed.

He was too amazed to even be angry at the captain. He had never felt more honoured in his life. For Palpatine had continued to talk to him, though there had been no reason to do so, and even deigned to show Alexis some of the rarer flowers. Alexis had even managed to calm down once the conversation shifted away from his family, and enjoy himself; not that he was greatly interested in plants but even when differentiating between types of Haruun Kal creeper, there was something hypnotic in Palpatine's voice which made any subject on which the Emperor chose to hold forth interesting. _Or perhaps, _Alexis thought cynically, _it was simply the fact that when a being possessed as much power as Palpatine, anything he did was fascinating._

Still dazed, he caught an air-taxi back to the apartment he shared with his sister Iulia. "What's happened, Alexis?" his sister asked over dinner that night, "You've gone off-world." Iulia Ts'umin worked in Imperial Admin., which she described as the most mind-numbingly boring work on the planet. Iulia had an on-off relationship with a co-worker, but she never brought him home. She'd promised to do so when it became "official" but it was three years later and Alexis still hadn't met him. He was starting to suspect she had lied about the whole thing and all she had was a hopeless office crush.

"What do you think of the Emperor?" He endeavoured to make the question casual, in between mouthfuls of what the pair called Ts'umin Soup – a type of nerf and vegetable broth they'd "invented" by altering a popular recipe slightly.

Iulia raised a curious blond eyebrow. "What kind of question is that? If this is some kind of covert way of asking if I knew about mother, I've told you-"

"No – I mean, as a person."

"You're asking me for my opinion of Palpatine personally?" She grinned, "You're not bugged, are you?" She dipped a piece of biscuit into her soup.

"Don't be stupid – just answer the question."

"Fine, I think he's a brilliant but flawed leader who needs to pay his administrative workers more. Happy?"

"Flawed in what way?" Alexis frowned.

"Are you practising interrogation techniques for your application to the ISB? Because I'm sorry to tell you but pouting at your big sister isn't going to cut it."

"Shut up!" His com-link beeped.

"That'll be them now, asking you for pointers," his sister drawled.

Alexis did not reply, but pressed a button to scan the visual message.

"Well?" Iulia asked.

"Just Drav asking about drinks later," said Alexis distractedly, getting up and cleaning away his bowl as fast as he could without looking like he was in a rush. Once safe inside his room – door magnetically sealed – he read the shimmering message in its entirety:

TO ALEXIS TS'UMIN, PALACE GUARDS CPL., 4th SECURITY DIV., GREETINGS.

HIS MOST SERENE IMPERIAL MAJESTY, SOVEREIGN OF THE KNOWN GALAXY, ETC… WISHES TO EXTEND TO HIS SERVANT, CPL. TS'UMIN, A REQUEST TO DINE WITH HIM TWO DAYS HENCE AT THE NINETEENTH HOUR IN THE GRAND SALON OF THE IMPERIAL PALACE; IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT THIS IS NOT AN ORDER & THEREFORE THIS OFFICE WILL NOT BE OFFENDED SHOULD YOU DECLINE.

PLEASE CONFIRM.

SATE PESTAGE, GRAND VIZIER IMPERIAL.

* * *

The vizier had been required to do battle with his facial muscles in order to prevent a triumphant smirk from crossing his face when Palpatine had told him to arrange another meeting with Cpl. Ts'umin. There had been no such leeway given for the boy to decline (Palpatine simply hadn't considered it), but Sate thought it made the request look suitably friendly. Besides, _no one _refused an imperial summons, certainly not insignificant guards' corporals. Sate could not be more pleased, even the boy's background worked to his advantage – if ever Ts'umin lost the Emperor's favour it would be all the easier to dispose of him.

But that was a thought for another day. For now he could bask in the success of his little gamble: ordering Captain Zao to send young Ts'umin to the gardens this morning, where he knew the Emperor walked in the early hours. Of course, there was always the danger that Palpatine would have killed the guard, but Sate had been prepared to take the risk, as he had realised his mistake on earlier occasions of trying to initiate private diversion at public occasions when the Emperor took centre stage, when Palpatine was not really a being at all, but a majestic construct of infallible power honed to perfection by years of practice. But alone in his gardens the galactic sovereign could be anything he pleased. And Sate would be willing to bet almost anything he possessed that Palpatine had bewitched the lad with the charm that could still entrance, though never as brightly as it had once upon a time.

And it was with considerable – or so he thought – _daring_ that Pestage had robes of deep, wine-dark sienna laid out for the Emperor that evening. It was a good tone for him and lent that malformed skin some colour; whereas Palpatine's preferred black leached everything to a dead white. The vizier also made certain the Emperor's chambers were liberally stocked with alcohol – he had a feeling they would both need it.

* * *

Unsure of what to wear to such an occasion, Alexis settled for his black uniform. Any dress clothes he possessed would doubtless be inferior to what Palpatine was used to seeing, so there really wasn't much point in trying to pretend to be something he so clearly wasn't – not anymore. He'd long-since grown out of the formal garments he'd worn as a child. It was only an hour before 1900 that he realised that he had absolutely no idea where the Grand Salon was. He was forced to consult one of the many guidance droids for directions.

It turned out to be on one of the many private levels of the palace and when Alexis had his ID scanned through (no less than six times) he was told to wait. Beautiful murals lined the walls and polished boots sounded loudly on dark marble. Just sitting here was hell; his whole body was jangling with nerves. It was so quiet, beings spoke in hushed whispers when at all – there were several of them sitting on sculpted benches – and the expansive room reminded Alexis of nothing so much as a over-decorated medical clinic when a soft-spoken aides would fetch one of them through different doorways.

But it was no aide who came for Alexis, but Vizier Pestage himself. "Corporal Ts'umin?"

"Yes, Excellency," Alexis tried to keep the fear from his voice as he stood up hurriedly. He probably didn't succeed. He tried to smooth out the wrinkles his uniform had acquired while he was waiting without the vizier noticing.

"Please follow me," The vizier was already turning away, leading Alexis quickly through rooms of breathtaking luxury, coming eventually to a set of tall double doors of worked aurodium. There were two Royal Guardsmen on either side. All of a sudden the face of the vizier was frighteningly close to his own; black eyes dangerous as he waved a crooked finger under Alexis' nose. "Do not speak unless spoken to. Do not look His Majesty in the eyes. Bow from the waist when you enter. Do not eat before he does and do not sit unless he is seated. _Understand?_"

Alexis thought of all the rules he must have broken that day in the gardens and swallowed. "Yes, Excellency,"

Pestage gave a signal and the guards swung the hinged doors open. Alexis thought he imagined a whispered "Good luck!" from the vizier as he was greeted with the magnificence that was the Grand Salon. Bronzium sculptures were reflected in mirrored walls, lit by a stunningly-wrought chandelier shaped to look like the galaxy under which rested a long antique table made of priceless thyssel wood. A sumptuous banquet was laid out at one end of the table, looking out into a floor to ceiling view of one of the spectacular sunsets Imperial Centre was so famous for.

Alexis bowed deeply upon entering, even though he couldn't yet see the Emperor... _There:_ a stark, deep red silhouette against the sky, Palpatine stood by the window, perhaps watching the air-traffic move far below – here they were so far up the palace rose above the cloud-line. Alexis moved to stand behind him, waiting to be acknowledged.

As he turned, the boy's beauty stunned the Emperor anew. Standing there in his dark uniform, the last shards of the sunset lighting his face, he could almost have been someone else, his perfect features a homage to what had come before. The differences were there, of course: short, pale hair shorn to regulation length, lighter eyes and a higher brow, a slightly more gamin expression, with fine Coruscanti skin free of the burn imparted by twin desert suns. Palpatine drew a quick breath and gave a tight smile, lips pressed together. "… Corporal," He inclined his head.

"Your Majesty," the boy bowed, smiling. It was such a trusting smile.

"Shall we?" Palpatine invited, waving an ivory hand toward the table; seating himself in the matching thyssel wood throne at its head, indicating that Alexis should sit on his right. "Tell me something about yourself." The Emperor poured Alexis some jewel green wine, its colours misty in the facets of the crystal goblet held out to him.

Alexis took the proffered wine, but did not drink, keenly aware of the vizier's instructions – it was safer not to touch anything until Palpatine did. For a moment he was afraid that the Emperor wasn't going to drink anything, but he poured himself some as well. Alexis desperately searched for something to say… "I… I…" he caught sight of the Royal Guardsmen in the doorway, "I once picked a fight with a Royal Guard…" the words shot out in a nervous rush. Clearly this hadn't been the sort of confession the Emperor had been expecting. Palpatine gave him a sideways glance, his golden eyes sceptical beneath the deep hood. Too late, Alexis remembered that he wasn't supposed to make eye-contact and looked at his plate. "Why does everyone look at me that way when I tell them? Seriously, somewhere on the HoloNet there's a vid of me getting my arse handed to me in the guards' cantina."

"Why?"

He shrugged, "I was drunk and bet one of my friends I could take on anyone there. You know, just one of those stupid things everyone does once."

The Emperor took a sip of his wine, "I can't say I've ever done anything _quite_ that idiotic."

Grinning, Alexis took a long draught of wine. It was astonishingly smooth. "Oh, come on… there must be something you've done that was equally stupid?" The words were out before he could stop them, horrified at his thoughtlessness._ Why can't I keep my mouth shut?_

"Well… when I was – oh – about eight, I thought I could fly and jumped off a bridge."

"What happened?"

"I broke most of the bones in my body," Palpatine smiled ruefully. "In hindsight, perhaps I should have started with something somewhat lower. But then, I've always been ambitious."

"No kidding!" Alexis took another gulp of wine, feeling himself start to unwind. This isn't so bad – I can handle this. "When did you decide… um, if you don't mind me asking?"

Letting the wine settle on his tongue, the Emperor considered the unspoken question: "I'm not entirely certain – as an unformed desire, perhaps forever. In practical terms, I decided I needed to become supreme chancellor when I was twenty-six." He paused, "Perhaps your true vocation is journalism?"

The corporal made a face, "Not me, Your Majesty!" He was starting to get hungry but Palpatine showed no sign of touching the food. "My sister, Iulia, wanted to do something like that but… I don't know… I kind of like working in the Grand Corridor." He'd heard that the Emperor had designed it himself.

Abruptly, Palpatine rose – forcing Alexis to leap up too, the wine going to his head. "Come," he said simply, beckoning Alexis to follow him. Regretting leaving all that delicious-looking food, Alexis did as the Emperor commanded, unnerved by the silent Royal Guards who fell in step just behind them as they passed through the aurodium doors. Across the hall, they stepped out onto a balcony with a view of the Grand Corridor far, far below – his fellow guards were merely black dots in the distance. One of those dots was Drav. Alexis leaned over the railing, gazing down into the artificial canyon. It really was an incredible sight. "Sometimes I despaired that it would never be finished."

"Did you really design everything?"

The Emperor gave a throaty chuckle. "Do they say that?" Alexis nodded. "While I am, of course, honoured to take the credit for such work; I'm afraid my artistic talent is rather exiguous. It was merely a case of choosing between various designs, though the trees were my idea." His Majesty rested his hands on the balcony beside Alexis. They were strange hands, oddly smooth considering the tapestry of lines that made up Palpatine's face, too pale to be human. The Emperor caught his stare and held it; his yellow eyes seeming to glow under the shadow of his cloak. And for the first time, Alexis questioned why he'd been invited into these sacrosanct chambers. He'd assumed that Palpatine had found him amusing… thoughts of promotion had been in Alexis' mind. But now, in contravention of the vizier's orders, returning that enigmatic saffron gaze, Alexis' mind raised the possibility that the Emperor's motives were both more and less complex…

"Your Majesty?" A deep voice called from behind them, causing Alexis to jump. Standing behind them was a man in the robes of an imperial advisor, with a thin, drooping, black moustache and dark eyes of a similar quality. Those eyes flicked to Alexis and away again, bowing to Palpatine, who didn't turn around; still gazing downward. The man spoke again: "There's been some action on the Outer Rim… rebels… Lord Vader is in pursuit, but… ah-" He broke off, clearly uncomfortable speaking in front of Alexis.

"Speak." The Emperor's voice was soft.

"They have – ahem – that is to say, they _may_ be in possession the plans. Nothing is confirmed."

"When do you expect to _have_ confirmation?"

"I'm sure Lord Vader-"

"I do not take kindly to being pestered with mere suppositions. Have Sate convene a full council tomorrow." With a flick of Palpatine's wrist, Ars Dangor, one of the most influential beings in galaxy, was dismissed. It made Alexis deeply uncomfortable.

Advisor Dangor gave Alexis a contemptuous sidelong glance as he bowed low to the Emperor. "As you wish, Your Majesty." He withdrew.

Palpatine still hadn't altered his gaze. "Forgive the interruption, my boy…" he turned to walk back to the doorway and gestured vaguely, "... it is impossible to escape such beings." He wandered back inside, Alexis in tow.

"Your Majesty, why am I here?" There was no bewilderment, no wide-eyes, just a quiet question, swallowed by the sudden stillness in the air as the Emperor halted – a red shadow on black marble. Alexis noticed the dark embroidery detailed on the hem of Palpatine's robes matched several veins of colour stretching across the floor.

The Emperor, inasmuch as Alexis could make out, appeared thoughtful. He turned away again and Alexis, although he dismissed the notion almost immediately, wondered if Palpatine was nervous. Six scarlet pillars had arrayed themselves along the edges of Alexis' perception. Within that perimeter, the Emperor finally turned toward Alexis. But the words he spoke bore no trace of any such feeling: "Because, Alexis Ts'umin, I desire it to be so."

This answer, or lack of one, built upon the suspicions which had begun on the balcony. A terrible chasm seemed to reveal itself in Alexis' stomach, pushing the choice he now faced up through his body in a nauseous rush.

A warm hand rested itself on his arm. Palpatine – so close – was staring at him intently. At this distance, his ravaged skin seemed like scrunched up, grey parchment inlaid with golden pools that seemed to draw Alexis out of time and into some other reality._ "Refuse,"_ that terrible voice said.

"What?"

Palpatine's voice was horribly close and strangely distant all at once, yet it was nothing if not gentle: "I give you my permission. You need not fear recrimination."

"I… I..." Wordlessly, Alexis shook his head. Alexis looked to the guards standing silently in the shadows of the room. He thought of Drav – of the tentative advances Alexis had made, not yet enough to be called anything but…

"Ashamed?" the Emperor enquired, causing Alexis to colour.

"No! _No!_"

Palpatine chuckled, "Leave us," the guards departed with a wave of his wrinkled hand._ They are my superiors,_ the thought echoed in the back of Alexis' mind. "Shall we return to the salon?" the Emperor said lightly.

But Alexis had made his decision. He was aware, when he made it (which he suddenly realised had been some minutes before this moment) that it wasn't a _wise_ choice. But this was the _Emperor: His Imperial Majesty, Sovereign of the Known Galaxy; _this was the embodiment of imperium who ruled over every being who had denied Alexis, every being who had spat on his disgraced father, who had silently accused Alexis and his sister of _disloyalty _as though it were some hereditary defect. _Every moment spent with Palpatine violated everything Volara Ts'umin stood for. _

Alexis knelt, and tentatively kissed his sovereign's white hand. Not as he had in the gardens, but slowly: lips pressing into the soft flesh – the world going warm and dark and terrifying as he closed his eyes. _What am I doing?_ But stopping was impossible.

The Emperor disentangled his fingers from Alexis' hold and used them to lift Alexis' jaw, so that the corporal was once more staring into those yellow eyes. "This is not the place, Alexis – rise."

* * *

The Emperor's chambers were behind doors, behind doors, behind doors. They were smaller than Alexis imagined, really rather cosy, comparatively speaking. The dominant colour was Imperial Scarlet. Everything was beautiful, and perfectly appointed; yet, unlike many rooms in the palace, it bore a very lived-in appearance. There was a black cloak thrown over the back of a chair. A silvery tea-service bore a cup of half-drunk _tisane_.

Alexis shrugged off his clothes, but the Emperor had slipped only his shoes off, but his doubtless pale feet were invisible, covered by the long robes. _He's uncomfortable_, Alexis realised. _I would be too, if I looked like that. _He tried to imagine what Palpatine might have looked like if the Jedi hadn't attacked him with their disfiguring sorcery, but found the task impossible; he'd been a baby when it had happened. Some vague memories from school surfaced – a speech he'd had to study...?

Approaching Palpatine cautiously, waiting for some sort of signal – focusing his gaze on those grey fingers in deference, Alexis grasped the two hands once more in his own and, to his surprise, they trembled. This gave Alexis confidence – he leaned under that cowl and met the emperor's lips with his own, closing his eyes as he did so.

It wasn't an unpleasant sensation, but the teeth were a problem. Making his way through the teeth was quite difficult. But they didn't taste decayed, just a little sticky. No words were exchanged, but they continued to kiss and something wonderful, something that made his head spin with privilege, coursed through Alexis. The Emperor made a quiet, muffled noise in the back of his throat and reached ivory talons up into Alexis' hair, causing his voluminous sleeves to fall away from his wrists, exposing white arms shot with blue veins.

Alexis wrapped himself around Palpatine, intuitively understanding the Emperor's need to feel concealed. He wanted to preserve his sovereign's dignity so he drew him under the covers and only then did he begin to pull at the enveloping black material. Slowly, very slowly, he tugged down the obscuring hood, causing Palpatine's whole body to flinch. _Oh gods_, _what did those Jedi __**do**__ to him? _

Palpatine's face was… _wrong. _His forehead was weighted down abnormally, bisected by a vertical dent in the middle, as though he had been struck. Lines blurred together in rivulets, creating waxen canyons in the Emperor's soft flesh. In the light, those yellow eyes were paler than they first appeared. He still possessed a thin layer of hair – the same colour as his skin – so that it appeared more like a light dusting of fine fur, reminiscent of cobwebs.

He became aware that the Emperor was shaking – _really shaking – _Alexis pulled him close, utterly appalled,so that Palpatine's head rested in the cavity of Alexis' neck. "That must have been torture," The boy whispered, mouth against his ear.

"It did hurt, yes," the monarch admitted, his light, spindly body finally beginning to settle in Alexis' embrace. His voice was utterly confident, but Alexis could still feel the tension of physical uncertainty. No one owned this collection of malformed limbs, not even the being with whose bleached skin they were covered. Overriding his pity and the horror coiling in his stomach and filled with a sense of purpose, Alexis vowed to himself that _he_ would possess this ugliness, to cherish it as it deserved to be cherished.

* * *

Erratic sounds drew Alexis out of sleep. He was lying in a deep red darkness. Something warm lay in his arms and he slowly became aware that this was the source of dissonance. A wrinkled, white _thing _was coiled there, in the grip of some unknown terror. Its ivory fingers twitched, convulsing, _suffering_. Alexis, content, and wondering dreamily where he was and how much he drank last night, moved to wake his strange companion.

"_Shh… shhh_… It's _ok_, relax, it's ok…" The noises died down as the pale creature relaxed, its eyes remaining closed, into his embrace. It was very thin and skin hung off it like yet another layer of material. It yawned, showing him a pink mouth and a set of blackened teeth, and snuggled further under the sheets and into Alexis – who became very still, swallowing nervously. But oddly enough, sleep seemed to render Palpatine less worrying: without those eerie eyes shining with authority or trailing robes, he appeared a small thing – like a thin stretch of clay he'd see at some gallery with vaguely humanoid grooves pressed into it.

Alexis' stomach rumbled, bringing him back to the reality of last night – he hadn't eaten since yesterday, around 1600… _Surely Palpatine must be hungry too?_ He had no idea what time it was. Alexis tried to wake him as nicely as possible with delicate kisses to the jaw. "Hey," he whispered.

Palpatine's eyes shot open and Alexis was thrown backward, taking the covers with him, to crash into the wall, knocking over a couch and a crystal sculpture which shattered as it hit the floor just as everything went black.

The Emperor drew on a robe and approached the boy. He lay at an odd angle on the floor. Palpatine moved a hand through blond hair and his fingers came away with blood. He knelt beside Alexis, brushing away the crystal that littered the carpet with a quick gesture.

_I could kill him. _It would, he felt, be the proper thing to do. It did not do to allow a being to hypnotise him so. Ever since that encounter in the gardens that boy had been in his mind. But he wasn't _useful._ In fact, he represented weakness more than anything else, but…_ a very beautiful one. _

Alexis' brows drew together and he wrinkled his nose, "Huh? Whaa… th'ell?"

A white hand cradled the back of Alexis' head, and the pain lessened. "I'm afraid you startled me."

"Did I… imagine it, or did a seventy year-old man… just… hurl me across the room?"

"Mm. Seventy-six."

"Do you m-murder all your lovers after you have your way with them?" His attempt at humour didn't quite disguise the shock.

"Oh, well, only those I suspect of trying to assassinate me."

"Well this assassin was_ hungry_."

"Hm?"

Alexis sat up – there was dried blood in his hair but his fingers couldn't locate the wound. _Gods curse his big mouth!_ "Er – that's why I woke you up… we didn't end up having dinner and there's nothing to eat here…"

The surprise on the Emperor's face could hardly be more evident. Sitting beside Alexis on the floor, _dishabille_, and surrounded by debris, he began to laugh, shoulders quivering in mirth: a cracked, wheezing and slightly unhinged noise. And after a moment Alexis found himself joining in.

When they had finally calmed down, Palpatine stood up, drawing his robes tighter about himself, and pressed a finger down on a comm. switch beside the bed, exchanging a few indistinct words with the being at the other end of the connection. It only took a couple of minutes for a droid to enter carrying a aurodium platter loaded with what looked like an al fresco breakfast for seven. Alexis liberated it from the bemused servo-droid and set in down on the Emperor's bed, where the sovereign had retreated. Alexis (who was rather fond of midnight snacks) sat on top of the covers eating with fingers. "Are you sure you don't want anything?" In such circumstances, he forgot the niceties of address due to a sovereign.

"No, no, dear boy…" Propped up on pillows, the Emperor's amber eyes were half-closed, yet Alexis felt them moving across his nakedness – admiring. He tried to ignore the attention; it was difficult not to flush. He wondered how many beings had sat here before him.

"Not so many…" Palpatine whispered. _Did I ask that aloud?_ "…Not after this palace was built." Alexis guessed at his true meaning: _not since I became emperor; not since my injuries._

"Your Majesty…" Alexis began carefully, "What is going to happen?" He asked the question he'd been working up the courage to ask since this began.

"Explain," the Emperor closed his eyes.

"Well, I mean, to me… with you… and… so on."

"Ah," Palpatine cracked a lazy eye open, "well that depends, Alexis, entirely on whether you would enjoy being a monarch's catamite."

_Now _Alexis was blushing; but he could see why the Emperor had said it (it was what others would say, after all). "You mean – live here with you?"

"I can have alternate apartments arranged if you prefer…?"

"No, _no_…!" Alexis paused, "It's just… what about my job?" It sounded idiotic even as he said it.

"I'm afraid it wouldn't be appropriate," the Emperor extended a hand for Alexis to take, which he did after a moment, crawling closer over the expensive covers.


	2. The Great Pyramid

**II: The Great Pyramid**

* * *

With only a few hours until dawn, they lay together: Palpatine under the covers and Alexis on top of them. The Emperor dozed, but Alexis' mind was busy, his body too awake for slumber. His thoughts were everywhere and nowhere at once – going over and over the choice he had made. He also took the opportunity to observe the Emperor and his surroundings more clinically; in an effort to distract himself from the restless monotony of his thoughts.

Apart from the wreckage Alexis had wrought in the corner, Palpatine's chambers were as restrained as they were beautiful; the only thing which detracted from their perfection was the Emperor himself, whose looks were a byword for ugliness - along with a few other things - across his vast dominions. Alexis himself had once cuffed a man who'd said as much in the street; but defending his sovereign's honour was little but defending his own... After a few more fights like that his fellow guards had stopped teasing him with Volara Ts'umin's treachery. In the filthy sprawl of Imperial City _the_ _Emperor's honour_ had nothing to do with Palpatine himself. It was about bloody cock-feathers and less ideals than sides. Alexis wasn't sure he'd believed the Emperor even _existed_ in any real way before now. Palpatine had been a thing of architecture, history, and the HoloNet; oh, certainly there was a being called Palpatine living_ somewhere_ in the upper levels of the Imperial Palace, but that wasn't the point. He wasn't this soft-spoken ruin of flesh whose breath smelt of wine and decay, nor a being with knowing golden eyes and wicked smile, and certainly not someone so painfully shy of their own body. This collection of small human details drew Alexis, hypnotised by Palpatine's reality.

A small black droid crept into the room and drew aside the drapes to reveal the faint glimmer of sunrise above the lush colours of the Emperor's Gardens, its transparisteel roofing allowing for a perfect view of the skies of Imperial Centre. Alexis - always a morning being - immediately decided that this was his favourite time of day here.

Beside him, Palpatine stirred, snuffling a little and moving closer to Alexis' warmth. His neck was slightly sweaty from sleep, fine, spider-web white hair clinging to Alexis' skin. As the saffron eyes snapped open, Alexis caught a moment of surprise in their depths as the Emperor turned to look at him. An odd sensation passed through Alexis, as a feeling of shock shot up his spine in a shiver at the same time. A chalk hand reached to touch his cheek. Alexis looked away shyly: "Good morning, Your Majesty."

"Mm..." Alexis was rewarded with a quiet smile which did not show Palpatine's teeth, a gentle pleasure in those authoritative eyes, still half-closed. Alexis supposed it was meant to be inviting, that look. It was so hard to tell with such a face. In the end, only the eyes could be trusted to convey the Emperor's intent. It was a stale kiss, but what could be expected of two beings still in bed? "Why don't you order us some tea?"

Alexis crawled over the covers to where he's seen Palpatine order them his midnight dinner. "They'll know it's not your voice, sire..." he pointed out.

"Those who have any business being on the other end of that comm. will certainly know I've taken you to bed before the morning is over, if by some small chance they don't know already."

"Oh..." Alexis pressed down on the switch-tab and immediately took his finger off again. "So I should _just_ order tea...?"

The Emperor burrowed further under the covers, which muffled his voice: "Ah, the insatiable appetite of the young! Order a five course banquet consisting entirely of varieties of Mon Calamari squid for all I care."

"Right," more confident, Alexis pressed down on the tab again. "Hello, umm... the Emperor would like tea and some... Sullustan custard pudding, please."

There was a pause on the other end of the intercom, then: _"Of course, sir."_

Yellow eyes peered above the covers at Alexis: "Custard _pudding_?"

"It was my favourite thing to eat when we lived there. Father let me eat it for breakfast sometimes. I haven't been able to have any since."

Palpatine shook his head, amused: "I suppose they think me depraved enough already. Still, you need not have intimated that it was_ I_ who desired such a thing."

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty."

A decayed claw lightly touched his cheek, ghosting down the side of his face. Those frightening eyes smiled: "No – don't apologise. I forbid it."

Again there was that sense of awkwardness whenever Alexis stared too long or Palpatine did something unexpected. The moment was broken by the noise of the little droids moving about cleaning up the crystal shards that still littered the floor. Another droid deposited a neatly folded black robe on the end of the bed. The Emperor kissed Alexis' cheek lightly before slipping out of bed, giving Alexis a good view of his naked figure. He was very thin but with a kind of mottled weight that sagged oddly in places. But although his skin was everywhere that same dirty chalk colour, nothing looked as aged as the Emperor's face and hands – which Alexis supposed were protected by his clothes when the Jedi cast their evil spells on him.

Palpatine drew on the robe and made his way into the next room without a word, causing Alexis to hurriedly wrap a sheet about himself and scurry after the Emperor – who he found inside what seemed to be a giant walk-in closet, choosing from amongst what looked like hundreds of formal robes, one of the droids beside him – its arms extending to take down the garment Palpatine had selected.

Looking across at Alexis, the sovereign smiled again and placed a hand on his shoulder, guiding him out of the room and through another door which was dominated by a square pool surrounded by dark red tiles. Heat rose from it in silvery clouds. Palpatine – without glancing at Alexis – lowered himself in with a sigh, shedding his robe at the last possible moment. _"Aah…"_

Alexis stuck a toe in, "It's _kniffing_ hot!" Palpatine shot him an amused glance before closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the tiles while Alexis descended slowly feeling the heat saturate his body, reddening his skin. Sliding down beside the Emperor, Alexis tried to draw close, assuming that was what Palpatine wanted – but he was waved away as a pale finger pointed him in the direction of a sculpted aurodium liquid-soap dispenser. Pressing down on the head of a sculpture caused blue liquid to spurt from its hands. Alexis caught it in his own hands and rubbed them together, lathering the stuff.

He rubbed the Emperor's neck with a bluish hand, causing Palpatine to crack open a yellow eye. He didn't look displeased, but again there was that sense of surprise as Alexis began to wash his back. But then he closed his eyes again and allowed Alexis to wash him, as their bodies drew close and they caressed each other in the steaming water, not sexually; but with a delicate hesitancy they both shared.

Alexis was finding it easier and easier to regard Palpatine's wrecked features as something matter-of-fact, dismissible. In some ways it even made him less terrifying, as it stole some of the imperial confidence the Emperor radiated when fully clothed.

* * *

The Director of Imperial Intelligence moved briskly through the room, head erect, shoulders back, the sound of her polished boots echoing loudly in the gleaming corridor. She struck a door-switch hard, causing it to hiss open, ruffling the stripes of white hair which hung long and loose around her face and the rest of her mane – jet-black – to ripple a little.

Unceremoniously, Ysanne Isard threw herself into a chair. Both her blue eye and her red eye lost their focus for a moment, and then she pressed a button on her desk and began reading the glowing transcripts which blossomed, shivering, into the air before her. She scrolled down to find her place:

_Subject: I've told you before… I don't know. _

_Interrogation Officer: You do know. And you will tell us. _

_Subject: We've been through this: I'm an Imp-_

_Int. Off.: I am going to require a location and I am going to require names._

_Subject: I'm sorry, but I don't have any to give you._

_[Let the record state that the Interrogation Officer here administered ten milligrams of 86.05]_

_Int. Off.: The location, princess?_

_Subject: [crying] Please…_

* * *

Everywhere there was the _tap-tap-tap_ of fingers on holo-consoles. Beings dressed in slate grey moved on soft feet carrying datapads. One of these beings, a human, set his datapads down on the desk of a blonde woman, whose hair was neatly furled in a soft bun. Blue eyes slid sideways and she reflexively smoothed her pencil skirt. "These are the files, Jejic?" she asked softly.

"Everything," the man answered her in a whisper. He put a hand on the shoulder of her jacket, causing the beings working at the surrounding terminals to trade significant glances. He gave her shoulder a quick squeeze and continued down the aisle. Iulia Ts'umin traded smiles with the woman at the next desk and reached for the stack of datapads.

* * *

Lady Pestage could not help but admire Palpatine's taste – a mixture of Core Abstract and Classic Naboo – but found his choice of colours oppressive. Since the Emperor was not in residence there were but two guards in place and they let the wife of the Vizier through without a murmur.

Her husband had been very clear about what she was to arrange for the lad: _I would do it myself if the Emperor didn't need me in Council; there's talk of disbanding the Senate. _Ten years ago that would have mattered to Moteé. Now it cost her nothing to walk briskly across Palpatine's carpet, the train of her jewel green dress rustling behind her.

"Hello?"

She pivoted sharply to find herself staring at Anakin Skywalker. _No_… no, this wasn't the man who had married Senator Amidala. This was no _man_ at all. But whatever Moteé had expected to find, it wasn't this nervy-looking boy – it should have been someone more slick, unlikable. She gave an elegant curtsy, allowing herself time to glance away, to collect her thoughts, to settle the disgust rising in her throat. "Alexis Ts'umin?"

A slightly lop-sided smile, "Yes, I–"

Moteé cut in, "I am Lady Pestage. The Emperor is in council at the moment, after which he will give audience. It the meantime, it is necessary we clarify your new role and prepare you accordingly in order to avoid any misconceptions." She took note of the crumpled uniform he was wearing, the worried eyes; _so very young._

"Right," Ts'umin nodded, looking past her, as if she were a parade sergeant. Moteé slowly circumnavigated this latest addition to the Emperor's retinue, assessing him critically. _What had she been thinking?_ This tall, pale-haired specimen looked nothing like Jedi Skywalker.

"To begin with, your rank has been removed."

His eyes widened in shock, "But-"

"Let me put this in the clearest terms possible: _you are now a state secret._ Congratulations. Your records are classified, your past, for all intents and purposes, erased. Your family name has been taken off your ID – which has been granted "brilliant scarlet" clearance. I can arrange for your personal possessions to be brought here if you like. Also, we need to find you appropriate clothes – is that uniform even clean?"

She caught herself wondering idly how long this Alexis would last, and hated herself for it.

* * *

Iulia's comm. beeped while she was walking back to her apartment, hyper aware of the weight of the datacard in her jacket pocket. "Iulia Ts'umin, who is this?"

_"Hey, Iu… It's Alexis,"_ his voice sounded odd, slightly forced.

She tucked her bag under her arm as she swiped her card over the door's ID swatch. "Oh hey, how's it go-"

The apartment had been ransacked. Their possessions were scattered about the place; it was a complete shambles. Their furniture was shattered. _"What's going on?" _she felt the pitch of her voice rising, her heart-rate climbing.

_"I… can't tell you. I just needed to say that I won't be home for awhile – but don't worry about me, okay? Love you."_ He ended the transmission.

Iulia looked about – stunned. The datacard felt hot through her pocket, as though she'd just taken it out of a data-slot. She relocked the door and ran.

* * *

Left alone, Alexis paced. It had been hours and there was nothing to do here. Without the Emperor's presence the lovely rooms felt like a cage. Alexis was too unsure to leave yet, afraid of what he might encounter outside. Here amongst so much exquisite statuary, precious things, everything the best of the best – it was as though he were trapped in a darkly glimmering jewel box.

Even if he were allowed to tell Iulia, Alexis knew he couldn't. Couldn't tell anyone; it was a leap too sudden, too inexplicable, to be explained. His whole body seemed to coil with tension as he took his finger off the comm.; _what would she think of me? What would father have thought of this?_

In the Emperor's mirror was an elegant individual wearing expertly cut black silk that highlighted the graceful lines of his slim frame: broad shoulders tapered to a slender waist, and long legs, ending in highly polished boots; he looked like the sort of young man he would have been if it weren't for his mother's actions... But he _wasn't_ that young man: this wasn't the reflection of a nobleman or an officer but – what was the word Palpatine had used – a catamite? A pretty thing he looked in these clothes, perhaps almost as valuable as one of the statues?

"Forgive me," he watched the shadowy owner of the voice approaching in the mirror. Being in the Emperor's presence was like drifting too close to a gravity well, he seemed to bend everything toward him – as Alexis bent now, receiving Palpatine's claws reaching delicately up into his hair. "I have had much to attend to." The Emperor wore trailing robes of a purple so dark it was almost black, his face all but hidden under its cowl. The rounded sleeves brushed the floor.

Alexis allowed those hands to caress him, feeling a shiver blossom up his body. He tensed as he saw the Grand Vizier appear in the doorway and attempted to slip out of Palpatine's hold – embarrassed – but those withered fingers continued to gentle him, irrespective of Pestage's presence.

Sate could not have been more pleased. Moteé had outdone herself – even to the vizier the boy's beauty was hypnotic, gathered up in the wings of the formal robes of the sovereign, whom he dwarfed by at least a head. Sate had to keep glancing at the young man, his eyes trying to find a fault in the specimen he'd found for Palpatine. No – the young man was eminently fit to be a gift for an Emperor

And His Majesty was smitten. It was obvious in the way the Emperor arched upward, the tenderness in those white hands. This was the first time in his long career of service that Sate had ever seen Palpatine being so intimate with another being. Others might have found the scene grotesque, but to the Vizier it was a relief to know that the master of the galaxy was human after all. He had come to fetch the Emperor to preside at Council and it would be a welcome change to know that the sovereign's mood would be a light one. He silently thanked the gods for gifting him with this new toy to offer Palpatine.

Finally, the Emperor stepped away from the lad, who muttered something to the monarch Sate couldn't quite hear. Palpatine's tone was darkly mellifluous, his lips twisted into a self-satisfied smile. "Yes, Sate?"

"I am sorry to interrupt, Your Majesty, but I have received a communiqué from Grand Moff Tarkin…"

* * *

"Leia Organa is in Imperial hands." Volara Ts'umin's voice did not shake, but her mouth trembled. Seated, her greying blond hair piled atop her graceful neck, she could still almost have been the wife of the Governor of the Sullust System.

"When was this?" Mon Mothma asked the question softly, her eyes full of pain. The sunlight of Yavin was sharp, illuminating the dust on the air between the two women.

"She was captured en route to Alderaan, perhaps little under a standard day ago. Even the Bothans don't know about it yet."

"And… the plans?"

"I don't know. Has anyone told Viceroy Organa?"

Mon shifted in her seat, closing her eyes in a slow blink: "Not yet."

* * *

The announcement did not cause uproar as much as muted resignation: "_...To better protect the citizens of our great Empire, the Emperor has superseded and suspended the Imperial Senate for the duration of this emergency. Moffs and Grand Moffs will now have direct control over their systems until such time as the danger has passed. Your Emperor trusts that you will all do everything in your power to assist your fellow citizens during this time of crisis and…_"

Across the galaxy beings stared up as the words were broadcast live on the HoloNet, scrolling down with an inexorable finality. On Imperial Centre it was splashed wide on view-screens, looking across at the Senatorial complex, which was ringed about with stormtroopers. Usually so busy in the evening, Monument Plaza was barren and air traffic in the diplomatic lanes had slowed to a bewildered crawl.

From a balcony near the apex of the Imperial Palace Palpatine surveyed his city. In the distance he could see the squat mushroom of the old Senate and its offices – far below his lofty locale. _Finally – finally, I am no longer forced to maintain the illusion! _He was now truly the Sith Emperor – as in ancient times – the galaxy resting on nothing but his whim. _Ever since his election to the chancellery, no, ever so much longer than that…_ He had hungered for this moment: for a little under a century.

Yet he felt every single one of those years. But what did it matter? In a few hours those who defied him would be no more, the first victims of the weapon Wilhuff Tarkin had so vulgarly codenamed "Death Star". He'd toyed with the idea of renaming it, but the name seemed to stick in his mind as he gazed idly up at the constellations above. Happiness was a thing seldom granted to the Emperor, and even then usually beneath his notice – everything was in his favour. _So why did he feel this unexpected melancholy?_

A figure joined him on the balcony. "Your Majesty?"

"Ah, Alexis – yes, yes, _come_… join me," the boy really _was_ a lovely creature; a pity he was without Force talent, but_ still_ such a marvellous specimen; biddable – but with just enough of a spark to be interesting. Strong hands snaked around the Emperor's waist, pressing him backward into Alexis' embrace. That was the enjoyable thing about this creature – such a guileless lack of fear. Palpatine hadn't been the recipient of such physical confidences since Lord Maul's death. Not something he would encourage in company, but a delightful indulgence in private. They watched - the balcony shaded from the afternoon sun - their eyes on the glinting white uniforms surrounding the Senate Buildings.

"Where are they all going to go?"

"Who?"

"The senators…?"

"Oh, I'm sure they'll manage. I'll give most of them new duties in any case."

"Isn't it safer to have them all together under your eye rather than making trouble on their homeworlds?"

The Emperor glanced up sharply and gave Alexis an enigmatic smile, "Has Sate been talking to you, my boy?" He fell naturally into the habit of addressing Alexis this way, though it pained Palpatine to know exactly why he did so. It was so enjoyable to interact with the young, and ever since Mara had grown up he'd been vaguely surprised to discover that he'd missed having a child under his wing. Not that Alexis was as young as all that – but to a being as old as the Emperor there was not so great a distance between ten and twenty except that measured in desirability.

Alexis flushed, "Sire, the only being I've been talking to apart from you is_ Lady_ Pestage and she was only interested in lecturing me on correct etiquette and complaining about my clothes."

"She was right to complain. The women of Naboo are famed for their sartorial finesse. I will have to reward her, your current attire suits you very well and besides, there is a dinner tonight I wish you to attend."

"What do I say if people ask me who I am, what I do here?"

Palpatine drew away from Alexis along the balcony, curling his pale fingers together thoughtfully, "Tell them the truth, if you like – everyone will immediately suspect you are lying, in any case."

* * *

"_Our apartment was raided."_ Iulia's voice was flat to Volara's ears – but perhaps that was merely holo-static.

"You think they've realised what you and Jejic are doing?" she said it as befitted her role, her tone held no comfort for her daughter. She frowned and lines appeared around the edges of her mouth.

"_I... I can't be sure. Alexis called me to say he'll be gone for awhile; I don't know if he's mixed up in this, if he's a prisoner or... I don't know. Everything is scary right now – I don't know what's going on. At least most beings' minds are on the Senate right now, not intelligence leaks."_

"Your brother, did he sound alright?" Volara asked.

The tightening of Iulia's jaw was invisible – always her mother asked after Alexis, never her, despite her fealty and his ignorance. "I don't know, mother. He didn't say much. Right now I've gone to ground in the lower levels in this place Jejic knew. I'll try to get to you as soon as I can."

* * *

Mara Jade preferred watching to participating in the Emperor's gatherings. This one was surprisingly restrained so far, really. Palpatine was keeping it relatively low key so it didn't look too much like a party to celebrate the disbandment of the Imperial Senate; which was what it was, of course.

Wearing a low-cut, black dress with barely any back and an impressive pair of heels, Mara slid comfortably into her role as pretty décor, idly flirting her way across the room. She spotted Director Isard in her dress uniform, having an intense conversation with Vizier Pestage. It looked like the Vizier was getting the best of the conversation – Mara smirked. It was always nice to see Madam Director getting the worst of things – ever since the woman had thought that she'd slept with the Emperor Mara had dealt with all kinds of petty intrigue from that source. It was painful – not to mention embarrassing as Mara looked upon her Master as a father.

Her thoughts turned her gaze in Palpatine's direction. The Emperor himself would seldom promenade but was comfortably enthroned on a dais at the far end of the room. Standing beside Palpatine's throne was tall young man who looked about Mara's age. His pale blond hair was cropped in the military style and he wore a black tunic with no insignia. He and the Emperor were talking quietly.

Mara threaded her way through immaculately groomed individuals to where Lady Moteé was standing - also watching the young man, but with a knowing expression that clued Mara to the fact that Lady Pestage might know something more than she did.

Moteé's dark eyes turned to assess Mara carefully. "Jade?" she said easily.

"I don't suppose you know who that man is, Lady Pestage?" Mara asked airily, playing the inane courtier, "The one the Emperor is so very interested in?"

"His name is Alexis – I'm told he's here for… decorative purposes."

That was Moteé's polite way of saying it. As far as Lady Pestage knew, Mara was here for the same reason. She took another glance at Alexis and laughed softly before sidling up to the dais, carefully skirting around where Rufaan Tigellinus was holding forth on the suicidal nature of the Rebel Alliance. The man probably hadn't even _seen_ a real rebel up close, nor looked in on any military briefing.

She curtsied before her Master in lieu of kneeling due to the company and her dress. "Your Majesty," she smiled, her eyes shifting towards Alexis. She liked fair-haired men.

Palpatine shifted slightly in his seat. "Ah, Mara," his sibilant voice was warm, "allow me to introduce you to Alexis. I trust the two of you will get along splendidly."

Alexis smiled nervously and bowed to Mara. "It's an honour," He seemed tense, his bow retreating to a military bearing. He glanced at the Emperor, as if hoping for instructions, but the monarch waved him away. Their parting glace was fonder than Mara would have expected – it told her everything she needed to know.

"Enjoy yourself, my boy. I'm sure Mara here will take care of you."

Mara slipped her arm around his and whisked Alexis away from the dais. "You look like someone who prefers a less formal kind of fun," she said, by way of an opener.

"I suppose I do," he was blushing.

This Alexis was either very green or very good. Given his apparent closeness with the Emperor, she was betting on the latter. "Why don't we ditch this place and go to a club on the mid-levels, huh? Someplace they've got a beat going."

The man sent a frantic look back toward the dais, but Palpatine was busy conferring with Dangor and Isard about something, probably Senator Organa. "I'm sorry, I can't – the Emperor expects me to stay."

Mara laughed, "Come on, surely you're not glued to his side?" She took his hand and pulled him aside, "Let's go!"

* * *

She took him to a place he'd been once or twice before and he bought her a drink because that's what you were supposed to do for girls at clubs. They took their drinks outside on a balcony where the pulsing music didn't blot out all other sound. "So," the red-head began, "how long have you been in the Emperor's service?"

"Er – about two days."

"Fast work for someone so young, isn't it?"

"I guess."

"I always knew he had others – but he keeps everything under his cowl; subtle hints were all I ever got until now."

Alexis was shocked, "I – he said he hadn't had anyone else for awhile."

"Well, that's what he said to me too – that I was the only one; hence why I had to kill you." Mara smiled., revealing perfect white teeth.

"_What?"_

"I have to be the only Hand. It's nothing personal. That's why I poisoned your drink."

"_You're insane!" _Alexis stared down at his cocktail in horror.

"No. Not really. You have about a minute before it starts kicking in and I pitch your corpse over the side of the balcony."

Alexis began to hyperventilate: "_Kniffing hell_ – I _knew_ I shouldn't have slept with him! _Please _– I'll never do it again; I'll disappear to the Outer Rim, you'll never see me again – please! _I'm sorry!_ I didn't realise he had other lovers! _Just give me the antidote!"_

Mara stared at him coolly. "You _slept_ with him?" she repeated, head to one side.

"Yes, _yes_, I'm sorry! But only once, _I swear!_" Gagging, Alexis threw up and began to lose colour.

"You're not Force-sensitive," the crazy woman said, disbelieving. "I thought you just had really good shields."

Alexis doubled over, retching, his limbs beginning to spasm.

"...Oh _shit._"


	3. The Hall of Mirrors

**ALEXIS III: The Hall of Mirrors**

* * *

Gentle fingers moved over Alexis' face; "Are you all right?'' asked a sibilant voice which could only belong to one being. Eyes sticking together for a moment, Alexis became aware of the soft cushions underneath him, the smell of decay and spice that seemed to cling to the Emperor – about the same time he realised that he was about to throw up… which he promptly did.

Immediately his hands rushed to his mouth. _"W-w-what hap…?"_

"Shh…" The fingers ruffled through his hair as the subtle mechanical noises of a droid indicated that the mess he had made was already being efficiently cleaned away. Alexis cracked his eyes open as Palpatine passed him a glass of water. Alexis' sick face was reflected in its elegant crystal facets.

"I was... in a club…"

"I'm _aware_," now the soft voice gained a sharp note. The fingers continued to twine into Alexis' hair. "Rest assured, I have reprimanded Jade. You were remarkably incautious in accepting her invitation. Do exercise better judgement in future. I really haven't the time for this sort of thing."

"_I_ don't… _what_… understand…?" Alexis sat up, moving away from the Emperor, feeling too exposed, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. Palpatine settled next to him, continuing his ministrations. Alexis couldn't seem to clear his head. His throat was slick with slime and it was as if there was some static stopping his thoughts. _Reprimanded?_

"_Hush."_ With a single syllable everything stilled and those fingers curled around his jaw, lifting it to meet Palpatine's golden eyes. "_Rest_... you've just come back from the dead."

Alexis' muscles suddenly loosened and he fell backward onto the cushioned bed. He found his voice at last: "I couldn't even _hit_ her – it was like my body just froze."

"Jade is a remarkably effective agent – however, perhaps I was wrong to expose you to Court machinations so soon. For that, I apologise."

"I thought you said no apologies, Your Majesty?" Alexis managed to crack a smile.

"From _you_ – an apology from _me_ is a rarity indeed. In any case, I'm afraid I must leave you again. Stay _here_, hmmm?" With a parting caress, the Emperor glided away, trailing long black regalia, and Alexis heard rather than saw the two Royal Guards shut the double doors behind him.

* * *

Alone, Alexis stared up at the high ceiling, trying to make some sense of what had happened. It was morning now – light shone through the transparisteel windows and, far below, beings were wandering through the lush gardens. That meant it had to be after 1400 at least. There had been some kind of mistake… _You've just come back from the dead… _Obviously Jade had taken him back to the palace and Palpatine's doctors had pumped him full of anti-venom, which explained why he was feeling so kniffing awful. _You're not Force-sensitive… _The Force_,_ didn't that have something to do with the old Jedi sorcerers? Alexis didn't know. He stroked his jaw where the Emperor had held it. The touch was strangely electric, even now the hand had vanished.

Abruptly, he stood up, throwing the crystal glass to the floor. It didn't even crack. Alexis ground his heel over it, producing a satisfying crunch. He was staring at the shards when something knocked against his leg: a little black droid was attempting to clean up the crystal from underneath his boots. Despite himself, Alexis smiled and shifted his feet. "I'm sorry… I'm making more work for you, aren't I?

The droid made no reply as it went about its business, carefully collecting all the tiny bits of precious crystal. _I can't stay here, _Alexis realised, _if I stay here I'll go mad – if I don't die first. _He wasn't cut out for this… this life. _Maybe I should just leave – give the Emperor a note? _He took a datapad from a nearby table, not looking at the encrypted files, but creating a new one with shaking fingers:

_Your Majesty,_

_While it is my joy to be your subject, and I appreciate what great honour you have done me personally – I find myself unworthy of the gift you have so generously bestowed on me – your company. You asked me to refuse you – I am ready to obey you now. I am not fit to be your companion, as Jade has shown. Perhaps she is a more deserving recipient of your affections._

_Alexis_

He left the holo-message glowing where the glass had stood. Stepping back, he found his hands were shaking. He clenched them. His message shimmered in the air, casting a red light over the bed. Alexis turned his back on it and began to hunt around the room for his comm., which he eventually located in Palpatine's study, neatly lined up with several others (probably the droids had just tidied it away).

He tried to reach Iulia's code:

"_I'm sorry. This communications code has been changed, awaiting reassignment. Thank you for your patience."_

The comm. - newly polished - gleamed in his hand, stark and impersonal. Alexis tried again only to hear the same official voice grating in his ear. He got the same response the third time.

Alexis sat back down on the bed with an angry grunt, stunned. A civilian comm. code was issued to Imperial citizens by their planetary government. Either Iulia had left Coruscant... or something had happened. His Majesty would have access to all the intelligence archives, Alexis could ask... no. Palpatine wouldn't want to be pestered with his family problems, not to mention how embarrassing it would be. _Besides, what if Iulia had done something wrong?_ _What if their mother was involved? _Iulia wouldn't be that stupid, surely? But the possibility gnawed at Alexis. His sister _had_ said some pretty disloyal things over the years... No, something had happened to her, she might need help...

_I'll go and ask at Admin. – they'll know if she hasn't come to work. _The two Royal Guards opened the doors for him without a murmur. The beautiful hallway was deserted but for Alexis and the aurodium statues casting long shadows across the reflective marble floors. Alexis knew there were lifts at the end of the corridor, which would eventually take him out of the Royal Apartments and into the more public areas of the palace.

"_... sure that's the kind of statement we want to make...?" _the voice echoed down the hall, emanating from a side chamber. It sounded like Advisor Dangor. Curious, Alexis drifted closer to the chamber though not close enough to trigger the door sensors.

A new voice chimed in: _"Tarkin's proposal is obscene. Besides, it's only the upper classes who are making trouble – executing Queen Breha, her senatorial consort, and little brat, would be far more effective that destroying the whole planet. Think of the revenue we'd lose!"_

Now Alexis was standing right beside the door, Iulia momentarily forgotten – _destroying a whole planet? _He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise and he shivered.

"_Don't be foolish," _the voice was the Emperor's, _"executing the royal family for treason would push Alderaan's people into open revolt. It is the only reason I did not have Bail Organa's head on my desk years ago." _It was not the cultured drawl Alexis was used to hearing, but a cold whisper Alexis had to strain his ears to catch.

"_You're not seriously considering granting Tarkin's wish?" _Sate Pestage's voiced the astonishment that was making Alexis weak at the knees.

"_As a matter of fact, I am. I have foreseen all the Alderaan could become and its princess' treason could not be better timed for Tarkin's pet project. Not only will it put an end to the irritation that is Alderaan, it will unite everyone against Tarkin, as I intend for him to take full responsibility for this terrible disaster of which I, naturally, had no knowledge. Lord Vader, I will admit, did try to warn me of my servant's foolishness, but I put it down to his dislike for my Grand Moff. It would be foolish, however, to dispose of the weapon after Tarkin has been executed for crimes against the peace of the Empire."_

"_Then, Your Majesty, shall I inform Tarkin he may test the weapon on Alderaan?" _

Palpatine's tone was chill, _"Do so."_

It was at that point, when a laugh he'd come to associate with pleasure turned into something cruel and horrible, that Lady Pestage's hand landed on his shoulder, making him jump. "Come away," she whispered, dragging him back. She led him to a set of rooms, small when one compared them to the Emperor's, but furnished with just as much care. "I suppose I don't need to tell you that you didn't hear any of that?" Moteé said quietly, inviting him to sit beside her on a blue couch.

Alexis shook his head, "What weapon could destroy a _planet_?"

"You're not listening to me. As far as you're concerned, there is no such , in future, I advise you not to eavesdrop on the Imperial Council."

"The Emperor doesn't seem to care-"

"You _stupid boy_!" Lady Pestage's usually pallid face flushed pink, her ears and neck (not whitened with makeup) were an ugly red to almost match her wine-coloured dress. "Of course the Emperor doesn't care! What do you think will happen when His Majesty tires of you? Do you think the most ruthless man in the galaxy will let you live after what you have seen and heard?"

"I..." He couldn't stop his limbs from trembling, when he finally found words, they were little more than a rasp: "...he _wouldn't_..." But Alexis' heart was hollow, once more hearing Palpatine's light dismissal of Jade's actions – that obscene laugh making him shiver still more. He felt bile rise in his throat as he bowed his head, swallowing to try and keep it down. "What you're saying doesn't make sense. What difference does it make what I overhear if I'm dead anyway?"

Lady Pestage put her hands on Alexis' shoulders, her dark, glaring eyes staring straight into his, "_Because_, by _not_ listening, you might somehow preserve your love and, by extension, your _life._"

"I don't-" again he found himself unable to meet her gaze.

"Then I suggest you start. It's why you're here, isn't it?" Moteé sighed, taking his hand, "Many a relationship owes itself to expediency, especially liaisons with the powerful. Still… with the Emperor it would be-"

"Moteé?" It was Vizier Pestage in the doorway, a pointed frown on his face, black eyes gleaming.

Lady Pestage slowly moved to regard her husband, rising gracefully from the couch. "Ah, Sate. The Emperor has adjourned the Council, then?" She was infinitely regal. There passed some indeterminable message between the couple, before they both turned back to Alexis, who took note of the contrast between them: Moteé's fine, unspoiled beauty and the Grand Vizier's decay under his purple finery. Somehow, he looked laughable in a way the Emperor never did – who scorned such jewels and hid his ruin of a face away rather than pretending to be something he was not. "We were just speaking of His Majesty. Can Alexis go to him yet?"

The Vizier's tone was acerbic, "I think he'd better." Alexis didn't need to be told twice. He bowed haphazardly to them both and dashed out of the room, flying along the hallway, until he reached the lift where, safe for a moment, he leaned his forehead against its smooth ebony wall, shutting his eyes tight to stay the tears.

* * *

Jejic had not slept well since Iulia's flight. He was distantly aware that she was safer - in fact – than he was, but that didn't stem the conviction that he could protect her better than a hundred X-Wings. One scared spy. The impersonal Admin. Centre seemed designed with the purpose of making her absence more unbearable.

A flash of light blond hair caught his eye and he blinked – _Iulia?_ But it wasn't Iulia, just some high-up aristocrat who'd clearly lost his way. "Excuse me, are you Miss Ts'umin's supervisor?" the pup asked, with false politeness. His cold blue eyes stared into Jejic's with a wide glassiness that was unnerving.

"What can I do for you, sir?"

"Has she been at work?"

"She quit yesterday, sir."

"Do you know where she went?"

"No, why should I? She quit her job, beyond that she's none of my business." _And isn't that just the truth? _Jejic thought bitterly.

The youth – little more than a boy, really – turned tail and ran. It scared Jejic more than he cared to admit. "Hey, _wait_!"

The Emperor stared at the words, which cast an appropriately crimson glow across his silk coverlets. His face was expressionless, one hand brought thoughtfully to his dry lips.

"_I am not fit to be your companion, as Jade has shown. Perhaps she is a more deserving recipient of your affections._"

_It cannot truly be jealousy, _Palpatine considered, _I would have felt it. This is an excuse. _It did not hurt, nor did it surprise him. It was disappointing, however, and that was the sting. Alexis had not seemed unhappy. Nor even too disgusted by the visage the Emperor knew to be a horrible one. _Perhaps he was merely frightened by the incident with Jade?_ It was a possibility. Then Palpatine would simply have to convince Alexis that merely sharing the Imperial bed was not a cause for assassination. On the contrary, it was one of the few favours Palpatine could bestow that would _not_ result in murderous jealousy from some being or other, barring a few idiots like Ysanne. The Emperor far preferred _her_ straining to sated, it was infinitely more gratifying.

_But Alexis…_ Alexis was a comfort. A beautiful, uncomplicated comfort. He had forgotten how addictive such pleasures could be. He could feel the boy's presence lingering in the doorway beyond.

Turning off the message, he shivered, feeling suddenly feverish. Something blossomed at the edge of his senses, pulsing like drum-beats, louder, louder, until he was awash with sensation – the Dark Side over-flush with the noise of pain, pain that reared up like a sudden wave before crashing down in a deluge of ecstasy, leaving everything…

_Fire._

* * *

Alexis saw the Emperor's body sprawl sideways, heard it slap loudly against the marbled base of a sculpture, eldritch light flickering at those grey fingers. Alexis heard his own scream only distantly, as he rushed over as soon as the light had vanished. Red figures obscured his vision. He stood at attention, not knowing what else to do as the pieces of his world were disintegrating around him. _Was Palpatine dead? _

"He's not dead," said an authoritative voice, "merely unconscious. You say there is a history of epilepsy?"

"Yes, though not for a long time," answered the Grand Vizier, hidden behind the wall of red masks. Crimson gloved hands were ushering Alexis from the room.

The Emperor awoke to find his senses oddly blurred. _Drugs, _he realised distantly, _I've been drugged. _He tried to push through the fog, searching desperately for clarity, fearful of being in such a state. Reaching the edge, he touched appalling pain that left his breath ragged, and withdrew instinctively back into the haze he knew to be artificial. He opened his eyes.

His physician was standing beside the bed. "Can you hear me, Your Majesty?"

Palpatine gave the man a curt nod, unwilling to demean himself by answering such a question.

"You had what appeared to be an epileptic seizure. Unfortunately, when you fell, you not only broke your pelvis but also injured your left knee." That would explain the confinement of his hips and leg – they had encased his middle and left leg inside a bacta-cast. "All we've given you so far is for the pain, but I wanted to ask permission to give you something to prevent another episode–"

"No."

"But, sire, if you don't–"

"_No_. Now leave." As a child he'd been open to the shifting of the Force, almost dangerously so. It wasn't so much a matter of midi-chlorians, Lord Plagueis had explained, but a twist of brain function that left him without the natural shields the mind uses to protect itself from the beyond. Unintelligible shards of pain, happiness, beauty and terror would assault him day and night: the galaxy had flooded into him, a boy with no barriers to keep it at bay. It was the reason he had never been found by the Jedi – his parents had supposed him mad.

His Master had trained him to distance himself from the galaxy, had painstakingly crafted him from a receptacle into a human being. It had taken years of training, but eventually he had been able to only let in what he wanted to see, and only from the controlled safety of a meditative trance. But some disturbances were great enough to crash through his shields and send him reeling back into the seizures of his childhood. The destruction of an entire planet appeared to be one of them. There was compensation though. He could feel the Dark Side still pulsating under his eyelids, beneath the drugs there was the thrumming of chaotic energy exultant. Palpatine experienced the odd sensation of feeling both stronger and weaker than he'd done in years.

Still, he'd already given Tarkin permission to use the weapon against the rebel stronghold, which he sensed would be very soon. Perhaps a standard week or less; Vader would be sure to keep the doomed Grand Moff focused. He tried to sit up but the dull pain grew sharp as he attempted to move. Not for the first time, the Emperor cursed his old body, letting his head fall back to be buffered by soft pillows. His bones were tired and brittle and he knew in his heart that his days of wielding a lightsaber with any effectiveness were over. _I am not Yoda to have several hundred years… _Yet the Dark Side had never been stronger, nor his grasp upon his galaxy more absolute.

_I must meditate upon this… I must decide… _important choices loomed before him, choices which could write themselves across the cosmos. But Palpatine closed his eyes. "Send Alexis in to me."

The boy's fear clouded the air almost as much as the painkillers. "You are afraid," the Emperor said matter-of-factly as Alexis perched on the side of the bed. "I will dismiss you, if that is you wish." He had no desire to keep a young man who did not want him. He had no energy for the chase right now.

"_No!_" warm fingers snatched hold of one of Palpatine's aged hands. "I did not mean what I wrote. I was scared, that's all. After Jade tried to kill me and… my… my sister has disappeared."

_Was that the cause of this terrible fear? The boy's sister? If only things weren't so muffled!_ "I'm sure my servants are more than capable of tracking down Miss Ts'umin, if that is your wish." _I will give the task to Mara. Being reduced to finding missing women should prove sufficiently embarrassing for her. _"I will make it my farewell gift to you, would you like that?"

The young voice was raw, "It was a mistake!_ I swear it! _Please let me stay!"

"Do you know, I have a fancy to visit my home planet…" _That will make an excellent excuse for not making any appearances at Court while I recover, and keep me from the public eye when Tarkin and Vader find the rebels. _He had never suffered a seizure in public, or before his more ambitious servants, and Palpatine hoped fervently he never would. "I have a retreat there, and Naboo is quite lovely at this time of year… You would be welcome to join me, of course." His voice had a dreamy quality to it.

Blond hair buried itself into the crook of Palpatine's wrinkled-ivory neck and he realised suddenly that Alexis had been crying. _Tears, Alexis? Who for, I wonder? _"I am honoured, Your Majesty," Alexis' small whisper quivered in the still air.

* * *

They left that night for the Emperor's private cruiser, _Lanvarok._ Alexis walked beside the Emperor's hover-chair, lost in thought. His Majesty had reluctantly agreed to another dose of pain-supressants, leaving him sleepy and irritable. Buried under dark blankets he reminded Alexis of a withered creature from some fairytale, now knowing that the sovereign possessed powers which no epileptic fit could generate. But he had come to grips with Lady Pestage's warning, and her unspoken advice. There was only one way out of this entanglement and that was through the Emperor's good graces, in ignorance of the high politics which might necessitate Alexis' death. They were surrounded by forty-eight Red Guards and trailed by doctors, advisors, officials, and soldiers. Yet, of all these, it was Alexis beside the Emperor, as the captain of the guard pushed the sovereign's hover-chair. The night air ruffled his hair – cold - and he bent down to make sure all Palpatine's wraps were secured, knowing how much the Emperor hated to be exposed and was rewarded with an amused, amber glance.

Alexis hadn't left Coruscant since his father's death. He stared up at the stars, tiny and infinite. Somewhere out there was Iulia. But Palpatine had promised she would be found, wherever she was, and brought back safely.

* * *

Thanks to Jejic, the details were on Volara Ts'umin's desk within the hour. With only a few of his closest advisors, and leaving the Grand Vizier to make sure Imperial Centre ran smoothly, Palpatine had left for Naboo. But there had still been no communication from Bail, which worried Volara, her hands going to her pale hair distractedly.

But the Alderaani Viceroy would agree with her that the most important thing now was that Palpatine had – for the first time in several years – left his well-defended capital for the comforts of his home planet. It was a long shot, but certainly worth it. "Iulia?"

_"Yes, mother?"_

"I've got you another mission."


	4. Lake of Shadows

**ALEXIS IV: The Lake of Shadows**

* * *

The silvery craft sped across the black water, the heat from its engines visible in the freezing air. Iulia breathed into her clasped hands, trying to warm them. _So this is where the Emperor came from_, she mused, pulling her thick jacket tighter about her shoulders. Theed had seemed too idyllic a place to spawn such a monster. But, surrounded by frozen mountains, she could almost feel Palpatine's shadow in the dark trees and snow-crowned peaks staring down at her across the fjord.

They'd come up through the Core to avoid detection – after liaising with the Naboo cell. Rebel numbers on the Emperor's homeworld were depressingly low, most of them idealistic university students out of their depth. Iulia had been forced to call for backup from Malastare – the nearest civilised planet. This wise move had gained her Ursulba – an experienced intelligence agent who'd spent the last ten years infiltrating his planetary government for what Iulia gathered had been both political and personal reasons. They had that in common.

The two agents were forced to get out and hike for six hours – easier for the multi-limbed Dug than for the so recently office-bound Iulia. Her legs ached fiercely. Perhaps I should have listened to Alexis' wise-cracks about being out of shape? The thought of her brother seemed to let the chill air seep right through her gear and into her skin. Her lost, _loyal _baby brother; she'd kept him safe. Kept him from their mother and what it meant to be a Ts'umin. The choice their father had made. _Who knew where he was now?_He could be dead – shot by one of mother's people.

"That's the place, Ts'umin-a," Ursulba laughed without humour, gloved fingers out-stretched: "His kniffing Majesty's-a kniffing homa." The Dug spat into the snow, adjusting his visor.

Iulia raised her electrobinoculars. In the distance, cut into the side of the mountain, was the far southern version of a lakeside villa. It was made of beautifully worked, blue-white stone – like ice – intricately carved above the glacier, inlaid with reflective windows like glinting jewels. There was a dark, sheltered entrance to what could be a landing area and snow-speeder patrols on the lake far below. In the distance, Iulia could just spot three surveillance towers. She shivered and her hands moved to her blaster.

_Soon._

* * *

Before removing his entourage to his estate the southern mountains, it was necessary for Palpatine be formally received by Queen Kylantha and Moff Panaka at Theed. Well, not necessary as such, but _expected._The Emperor had been looking forward to meeting young Kylantha, who was the first Naboo ruler to exceed her two terms in several hundred years. Not that others hadn't been asked, but Kylantha had accepted – doubtless taking advantage of the spirit of the times.

Alexis had held his gaze fixed to the viewport, watching the misty orb of Palpatine's homeworld draw near. The terror he had shown before their departure had settled into a nervousness which caused Alexis to toss his head, birdlike. The Emperor had slept peacefully for most of the flight, still under the influence of the narcotics administered on Coruscant. But now he found himself awake, his rest disturbed by Alexis' heightened awareness. Palpatine was a connoisseur of fear; this was a slave's fear – tremulous in its timidity.

The Emperor had always been rather condescending about those who enjoyed keeping pets (both of the sentient and non-sentient variety). Servants were useful, pets were not. His late Master had been overly fond of them, rearing all manner of dark, alchemical creatures – ostensibly for recreation. Palpatine himself had once been ordered to take care of a litter of murderous tuk'ata as a punishment.

He beckoned Alexis over, luxuriating in the pleasure of just trailing his fingers down those beautiful features. It was ridiculous; more ridiculous than Anakin – his joy, his desire, his masterpiece. This was but a pale echo of the young man with whom Supreme Chancellor Palpatine had spent so many pleasant hours. Once, there had been ample opportunities for such intimacies as this, but he had not taken them, not when there had been so much to gain, so much more to lose. Power was infinitely more gratifying than sex and Palpatine had been only too happy to sacrifice his private life to his ambitions.

_And now...? _The holomedia were as pliant under his hands as Alexis himself. Even if a rumour did surface, it would be tame compared to hundreds of other things they whispered about him. Beings who were eager to believe he ritually sacrificed members of the Imperial High Command to prolong his own lifespan (if only things were indeed _that _simple!) would sneer at the idea of him having an affair with a young guards' corporal. Palpatine had spent almost half a century in politics crafting an image of someone above sordid sexual scandals; wedded to his principles,_ his galaxy. _

Swapping silken red skin for red sheets and red wine, Chancellor Palpatine had forced his sensuality into luxuries. His tastes had always been refined, soon they became exquisite. _Perfection:_ perfection to absorb his needs; perfection to keep him company while he waited to claim his chosen apprentice, to claim his throne. In his mind, the two were entwined – dark lord and empire. _Perfect._

Yet here he was with a twenty year-old child lying beside him, whilst his body howled out its age in sharp pains whenever he moved. He was acutely conscious of every gesture, every small movement and every_ imperfection_ he constituted. The Emperor knew this liaison was laughable, it reflected well on neither of them. A whim, a chance to rediscover something left behind on the steep journey. That was all. But when his cold, dissecting logic had turned to kill this weakness, it had met with decades of want which, it seemed, had been waiting patiently for just such a moment as this. Oh, he _could _end it. Palpatine was certainly capable of murdering the lad this very moment should it became necessary.

But it was not necessary. His abiding love, power, did not yet require Alexis' death; it was that voluptuous maiden who brought him all he had ever desired. Alexis was merely another one of her gifts, she had wooed this boy to a disfigured, old man with her sweet voice, as she had called all the others before him. She was everything, without her... _without her..._

"We must be landing in a couple of hours, sire..."

"Mmm..." Palpatine did not move, occupied with his thoughts and his examination of Alexis' skin; feather-touches to the jaw and then running the back of his hand down the boy's lovely cheek. As Alexis began to fidget, sitting on the edge of the bed nervously, the Emperor stroked his lover's mind with pleasure until the beautiful body was taut, almost arching, as Palpatine continued to lightly minister to his face. It was dangerous to use such techniques on those without knowledge of the Force, but he didn't care as he reduced Alexis to trembling flesh, taking hold of the boy's chin, staring into dilated eyes which closed, shuddering, in the final moment.

Alexis fell forward into his arms. "Your Majesty..."

The Emperor was left with an oddly clinical appreciation for the beauty of the moment. "You give me great pleasure." He had finished; the marionette deserved rest. Alexis curled his body around behind Palpatine – mindful of the bacta casts – as close as possible, his bare neck lolling on the Emperor's black-clad shoulder. Warm.

Palpatine suddenly recoiled from his previous enjoyment; his actions seeming to him dangerously close to pathetic. Reduced to animating a nonentity in order to feel some kind of sexual pleasure! But the Emperor couldn't abide self-pity and quickly moved to divert his thoughts. There were reasons: good, solid political reasons why it was Alexis in his bed and not... oh, Rufaan Tigellinus, for instance. The Emperor loathed the very idea of anyone in his political life knowing about such personal matters. Sly Moore, Sate Pestage, and now Mara Jade, were the only beings alive who were so aware. Perhaps Lord Vader suspected of old, but Palpatine was fairly certain that his apprentice had put all of the attention the Supreme Chancellor had lavished on Anakin Skywalker down to ill-intentioned manipulation, as indeed said Supreme Chancellor had, at the time. The truth, Palpatine now recognised, was a more complex thing altogether.

"Who was he?" the curious whisper threw Palpatine slightly, surprised their thoughts had both run in such a direction.

"To whom are you referring?" The Emperor bought time to consider how much of an answer to give.

But Alexis – perhaps due to his post-coital state – took no notice. His blond hair was in disarray, slick with sweat; his blue eyes half-closed under pale lashes. "You must have loved him very much." The words were shaped with tenderness, the boy's breath warming the Emperor's grey-ivory cheek.

Palpatine found himself at a loss for words. To call what he had felt _love_was to completely miss the point of such passions. The joy of such total possession; the exhilaration of sculpting a lord from a child; the delight of sharing his insights with his chosen heir; the pleasure he took from the reverential awe he received in return... Perhaps simpler beings might call such feelings love, but from what Darth Sidious had observed of that particular emotion, it involved a certain degree of selfless stupidity which had always been, thankfully, absent from his character.

"Your Majesty?" The long silence had pulled Alexis out of his haze, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend-"

_"No apologies,"_Palpatine growled. "You are not one of my blandishing courtiers. I would not have begun this if you were. You asked me a very complicated question. Suffice it to say that I bequeathed him everything that is truly important."

"What happened?"

"He was in love with someone else." It wasn't exactly the truth, and yet it was. Palpatine supposed that it would do to assuage Alexis' curiosity.

"Oh." It obviously wasn't the response Alexis had been expecting.

"Are you still afraid of me?" the Sith Lord asked it softly, knowing the air between them to be thick with the answer.

A long pause. "Everyone is afraid of you, sire."

It was a good answer, but it didn't satisfy the sovereign. This cloying fear of Alexis' irritated the Emperor's pride; he desired trust, he desired affection and he had done everything he could to secure these from Alexis. He had billions of beings who feared him, after all. "Your fear does you credit, Alexis – but it is not what I would have of you."

"Are... are you a Jedi?" Alexis asked, in a rush of breath.

"No," Palpatine laughed, indulgent. "I am far more powerful than those dead magicians ever were. It is the reason they tried to kill me." He said it simply, almost carelessly.

"Like Darth Vader?"

"Very much so. Only... beings wisely fear those who possess such, seemingly supernatural, powers; it is one of the many reasons the galaxy had so little tears for the passing of the Jedi Order. It is why I have concealed my own talents from my subjects." Energy sparked at the fingertips of Palpatine's outstretched left hand, illuminating their faces in crackling blue light. "Is _this_what you fear, dear one?"

"N-no, Your Majesty. I'm... I'm afraid of what will happen when you... when I..." Blue eyes silently communicated what Alexis' stilted tongue dared not.

"Ah... and who put that thought in your mind?"

"No one, I just-"

The lightning disappeared into a caress. "It's _treason_to lie to your sovereign, Alexis... though your concern for Lady Pestage is touching. "

"How could you-?"

"It is of no concern." Palpatine turned to rest against Alexis chest, still. "Your death is quite useless to me. I can stopper your memory to just as easily as I can your lips." Alexis shivered beneath him. "No, no, listen to me. I have taken you into my keeping and I do not so readily relinquish my possessions."

"Lady Pestage said you would kill me."

The Emperor's sickly eyes were distant, almost melancholy. "Oh, Alexis... I am _tired._ Your affection is all I desire. Come,_ forget this._" And Alexis did: the thoughts slid from his mind like water down smooth glass. Palpatine did not like to do it – it felt like cheating – but awe was to be preferred in an intimate companion to fear. He was too old to play _that_ game at such close quarters. Awe was gentle on his brittle body. "I must prepare for landing. If you would fetch the droids?"

* * *

It is one of the most firmly held beliefs of the Naboo that only the young should be elected to royal office. Those who are in the flower of their youth, it is said, will hold true to their ideals and not be corrupted by power. _Have I been corrupted? _Queen Kylantha wondered, old at twenty-five.

The Queen stood on the marbled landing bay, watching as the Emperor's shuttle drew in its wings. Her ice-blonde hair was folded up into an elaborate fan which wove down into an equally elaborate gown, decorated with trailing diamonds which set off her enigmatic grey eyes as they caught the sunlight.

As she waited, she marvelled that Palpatine had managed to keep the love of his people in the face of such a deeply entrenched belief. A smile whispered across Kylantha's painted face: the Naboo worshipped their traditions, their history, and their ancestors. Palpatine had somehow managed to achieve the status of ancestor-god in his own lifetime. One did not criticise the ancestors, lest one lost their favour – the death of her predecessor had taught Kylantha that much (Queen Apailana's assassination held no mystery for one who'd seen the security files: two shots to the back of the head by an imperial sniper). Certainly, the Queen thought as the ramp lowered, it must help that he looks like an ancestor revenant already. Kylantha bit her tongue, _I must not be nervous, I am queen. I must not be nervous, I am queen… _

A stream of imperial guards issued smoothly from the shuttle, flowing neatly into two parallel lines of crimson. Next to Kylantha, old Moff Panaka knelt down on the marble and everyone else followed suit, except the Queen, who felt very alone, surrounded by a velvet pool of kneeling handmaidens. The legally-elected sovereign of Naboo bowed to no one.

It seemed to be a long time before Palpatine emerged, cloaked in the deep blue-black of a cold lake under the night sky. Both of them, it seemed, wore the colours of Lady Moon. Kylantha had ample time to consider the Emperor's unspoken message as he slowly ambulated toward her, leaning heavily on a glossy cane. _Perhaps a reference to the Alliance in the sombre black? Solidarity of purpose? Maybe blue spoke of the joys of homecoming, a return to the oceans from whence life began? Or was it the blue of duty to a noble cause?_ It was so difficult to tell when people chose to mix colours. _A joyful return during sad times when duties weigh heavy and the necessity of uniting against common enemies is paramount? _These days only the older citizens of Naboo still used the language of the Colour Wheel. Kylantha had been forced to learn it when she ran for Princess of Theed. He really was leaning very heavily on that cane...

Finally, he was close enough that she could see those fabled yellow eyes – _he truly was a creature of Lady Moon!_An ethrazé demon made flesh, grotesque in its antiquity. Kylantha sank into a curtsy, "Sir," she lowered her eyelids, not wanting to meet his amber stare. She could not call him Your Majesty. A withered hand took one of hers, raising her to her full height once more.

_"My lady,_" Palpatine's voice was low, like the rustle of silk – just for her.

Behind him were a glut of aides and attendants, but Kylantha did not see them. In a graceful swirl of silver and jewels, the Queen moved to the Emperor's left side, snaking her arm around his. Outwardly, it was a sign of solidarity. Only the two of them knew that he silently allowed Kylantha to bear the weight of his left side. "There's quite a crowd waiting to welcome you home," she murmured, "perhaps you would prefer to rest before addressing them?" Kylantha thought of a galaxy bereft of the Emperor... _is this frail being really all that stands between us and civil war? _

"No," he answered just as softly, "there will be plenty of time to rest later." He did not let go of her arm; after all, it was a diplomatic coup for _both_ of them, considering what had happened to Apailana.

* * *

The banquet which followed was sumptuous. Thousands of candles lit up the royal palace and its hundreds of guests, all of which didn't really compare to the street party going on outside. Alexis stood on a balcony watching a fire-dancer whirl his flames about his audience, who were drunkenly half-singing some patriotic melody.

There was a sharp rapping on the carved double-doors. The two Royal Imperial Guardsmen, whom Alexis knew to be on the other side, seemed to be doing nothing about it. He cautiously opened one archaic hinge-door.

A tall girl stood there, wearing a red velvet cowl that draped almost as low as Palpatine's. "I have a message for His Imperial Majesty from the Queen."

"He's in holo-conference with Imperial Centre – I don't think he'll be too much longer. You can wait here, if you like." Alexis waved her inside.

"Thank you," once inside, she lowered her hood. "I'm Baalé, one of Her Majesty's handmaidens." She had a clear, wintery face: icy hair done up in a simple chignon, and cool, grey eyes.

"Alexis," he gave her a short bow, clicking his heels, hands at his sides.

Baalé smiled, "I didn't have you down as a soldier."

"Appearances can be deceiving," he matched her smile with one of his own.

That smile disappeared as the handmaiden gave a grave nod, "Yes." She gazed about the suite. "What happened to the Emperor's leg?"

Alexis fell back on his guards' training, "I'm afraid that's classified, ma'am."

The handmaiden shrugged, 'It was worth a try."

At that point, Palpatine himself entered from the other room, collapsing with a sigh into a richly-upholstered chair. Baalé bowed, Alexis walked to behind the chair. "Kylantha," the Emperor stated, his features enigmatic, "to what do I owe this additional pleasure?"

"I have reason to believe there are two rebel assassins on Naboo. Volara Ts'umin got in touch with Apailana's old contact three days ago."

_Volara Ts'umin? _His mother's name sent a hot shiver up Alexis' spine and he gripped the back of the Emperor's chair with sweaty palms, his face hardening.

But Palpatine's voice was breezily unaffected by the news that Alexis' mother was attempting to secure his assassination. "Thank you, my dear, I appreciate the gesture. You're far more astute than that Apailana girl ever was. But it so happens that, by happy chance, I'm already aware of the agents Mothma's pitiful Alliance have sent to secure my death."

* * *

Mara Jade had picked up Iulia Ts'umin's trail at Pixelito Spaceport on Malastare. She'd been pleasantly surprised when the Ts'umin woman then contacted a suspected rebel agent named Ursulba – both of them booking third-class passage to Naboo on separate transports. Originally, she'd assumed that her Master was punishing her for her, admittedly large, screw-up with a routine job usually handled by some desk-bound peon in Intel. But it was too much of a coincidence that both of them just happened to be headed for Naboo with fake IDs, where neither of them had any family or connections, and where the Emperor was due to arrive in a day or so.

_I'm sorry for doubting you, Master_, Jade thought as she watched Ts'umin and Ursulba trudge through the snow toward the Emperor's estates. Things were about to get interesting.

* * *

Alexis screwed his eyes tight shut before cracking them open – clotted with sleep – and reaching for the twisting body next to him, sliding his hands under the Emperor's arms to hold him closely – otherwise he would begin to thrash. Since the accident, Palpatine's nightmares had worsened.

Lashless eyes flickered and parched, withered lips exhaled a slow whimper. Wisps of very fine white hair clung to the underside of Alexis' chin as he ran a hand up the knotted rope of His Majesty's spine and back down. Keeping one arm around the Emperor, Alexis reached over and fumbled around for small drawer by the side of the bed. Inside was a jab-kit. He buried the almost invisible needle into the inside Palpatine's arm, just the way the Guards' Captain had shown him two nights ago, when the screaming had become unmanageable. Palpatine's breathing eventually become more regular. It was strange being so awake in the darkness, ministering to a vulnerability the Emperor didn't even know he had. Or, if he did, never admitted to it.

It was almost impossible to judge how early it was by the southern Naboo light; day and night blended into each other here. It must have been about an hour later when Palpatine's eerie yellow eyes opened – Alexis' hand was still stroking the sovereign's back. The Emperor sighed, staring up at the ceiling. Silently, Alexis pulled away, leaving Palpatine to his thoughts. He crossed the room, peering out the window: the air was white with snow.

Alexis didn't activate any of the lamps – could just make out the dark shape of the old-fashioned tea service – his hands closing gratefully around its warmth. He'd set it to begin brewing at dawn. Alexis' carefully stirred in a little muja juice, his nakedness pale in the pre-dawn light. He took a cup back to bed, handing it to the Emperor, who closed his eyes meditatively as he breathed in its aroma. His lips made a dry moue – Alexis was unable to tell whether in pain or pleasure.

To the profound upset of all his doctors – Palpatine had refused bacta submersion. Alexis knew why and he knew what it cost the Emperor to do so. The idea of being stripped and immersed, all the while being monitered by a bevy of droids and physicians and to be separated from his work for so long, was something Alexis' lover just couldn't face – his imperial dignity would not allow it. That left him unable to walk or sit for too long without a large amount of pain as his body healed; sitting at a desk was out of the question. There was the option of medication, of course, but the Emperor refused that too. Apparently, the sleeping drug was administered to Palpatine on the Grand Vizier's orders – the alternative was a bad-tempered, sleep-deprived Emperor who could not understand why he found rest so impossible.

The trouble was that the pain seemed to exacerbate the nightmares. Alexis half-suspected Pestage was responsible for suppressing the dreams as well, or perhaps it was His Majesty's autocratic subconscious – refusing to remember that kind of weakness.

Slipping into the next room, Alexis quickly availed himself of the sonic shower instead of using the luxurious bath – dressing in the black garments he couldn't help but think of as his "uniform". They were beautifully tailored, but had a non-descript quality to them Palpatine had decided Alexis could use to his advantage. Once dressed, he made his way into the generous room Senator Palpatine of Naboo had once used as a study. On the stylised, real-wood desk an aide (Alexis didn't know their names) had left the latest datapads demanding the Emperor's attention. The Naboo staff seemed to assume that Alexis was some sort of cross between a manservant and a PA, which suited Alexis. It was actually a relief to have a role to play – instead of floundering about with nothing to do but wait for Palpatine's attention.

He set the documents down on the bed, "Ah, thank you…" An ancient hand reached for the top of the pile as the Emperor leaned into Alexis' kiss. When their lips parted, warm eyes raked down Alexis' figure. "Aren't you cold?"

"Is that a politician's way of saying come back to bed?" Alexis smiled, stretching out on top of the covers next to the documents, leaning on his elbows. He was starting to learn what was, and what was not permissible to say. It was not permissible to say – for instance – that it was ridiculous how Palpatine heated his rooms like a sauna and somehow still managed to feel chilled.

But the Emperor's attention was now firmly on his work as he gave a distracted chuckle, showing his decayed teeth (the enamel had been ruined along with his face, apparently) and shook his head lightly, amused eyes not straying from the holographic text.

Alexis left him to it – Palpatine would be occupied for several hours, at least. Even here where things were so informal and the sovereign was practically bedridden, the work didn't stop. The Emperor merely did it from a more comfortable location. And while Palpatine was occupied, Alexis had found he was perfectly welcome amongst the staff.

The kitchen smelt of freshly cooked pan-bread and spiced fruit, the traditional Naboo breakfast – along with the galaxy-wide aroma of fresh kaf. The HoloNews was flickering in a corner: a pretty, dark-haired girl with a rich Naboo accent was announcing the weather. Several kitch-droids were zooming up and down the benches, preparing food. Alexis sat down next to an aide who was continually checking his holo-port as he drank from a sizable mug of kaf. "How is he?" The kaf-drinker asked Alexis.

The fifteen faces arrayed variously around the table and its environs all turned to Alexis with an intense interest which the weather-announcer would never merit. "His Majesty doesn't appear to be in as much pain as yesterday," Alexis told his audience tactfully. There was a collective sigh of relief.

Another servant, short but darkly handsome – Alexis couldn't help but notice – ceased to stir his cup of tisane and raised it high, looking directly into Alexis eyes: "To our beloved Emperor, may the gods bless his recovery."

_"Our beloved Emperor,_" everyone stood and echoed, before getting on with their breakfast. It was the kind of display Alexis had taken part in back at the palace barracks when anyone high rank was looking on. But now Alexis actually knew Palpatine, it made him uncomfortable. He couldn't meet anyone's gaze, staring down at his pan-bread and picking up a utensil. _That had been for his benefit._ He had never felt so lonely.

* * *

As Alexis returned to Palpatine's chambers, a familiar figure brushed by him in the corridor. Mara Jade gave him a curt nod as she passed – her white snow-suit still damp with ice, her spun-copper hair tied up in a tight knot. Her boots were stained with something that looked an awful lot like blood. Alexis treated her to a blank-eyed glare as he stepped through the guarded entrance to the Emperor's rooms.

There was a sound like something heavy striking glass and a long shriek followed. Another crash, and another, as Alexis ran forward – thoughts of assassins racing through his mind as his own pulse seemed to assault his ears. Where were the Imperial Guard?

The scene which met Alexis' eyes was not what he had expected. Palpatine stood – alone – staring at a smashed holo-projecter, surrounded by a circle of debris that had once been priceless furnishings. The Emperor's breathing was shallow, catching in pain. One pale hand was extended, fingers hooked into a claw. In one fluid motion Palpatine raked those fingers across the air, and the lamps along the walls shattered in their sconces, broken circuitry causing sparks to dance across the room, setting the carpet alight. Tears of rage rolled down Palpatine's face and for Alexis the room began to spin dangerously.

He lept across the room, tearing down drapery to put out the fire, yelling for help at the top of his voice – but nobody came. Alexis stared at his Emperor, wondering whether he too might be ripped apart by the storm of Palpatine's fury. The monarch's eyes burnt a deep orange-red and he seemed not to see Alexis at all. Grim words dripped from those thin parchment lips, in some dread communication Alexis couldn't understand. Without the fire, they were left in darkness and to Alexis it was as if there might not ever be light again. Something was happening in the air and, as he inhaled, something evil seemed to slip inside him and then there was no more breath. He retched, his eyes rolled up, and he knew no more.

* * *

"He's still alive but his beacon is very faint. It's probable that his instruments were disturbed by the blast..." _I'm all right_, Alexis wanted to say to the worried voice,_ I'm alive!_

"Why wasn't this reported sooner?" Palpatine's voice – still warm with anger.

"Ah, well, Your Majesty, TIEs have no long-distance transmitters or hyperdrive capabilities, only their basic signals. The frequencies without a station are very-"

"I'm not interested in _frequencies!_"

"Yes, Majesty. Lord Vader will almost certainly be-"

"Almost certainly _nothing! Find _him!" A hand strayed to Alexis' cheek as footsteps drifted away. "Awake, are we?" The Emperor slipped into bed next to him.

"What time is it?"

"Around 0300," Palpatine winced as he arranged his limbs under the covers. Alexis was treated to an affectionate kiss. "Go back to sleep."

_Am I going mad? Did I dream the fire and the shattering lamps? _The room seemed as it had been. That terrifying sensation which had robbed him of breath was no more. His body was already responding to the Emperor's proximity. _Something is wrong, something is very, very wrong! _

"Sleep, Alexis..."

And his lids were so heavy, they drifted shut without his consent.


	5. The Enchanted Castle

**ALEXIS V: The Enchanted Castle**

* * *

In those next few days, Alexis saw very little of the Emperor. A sweep of robes glimpsed between meetings, a shrouded figure reading holo-documents through a half open door and, occasionally, a warm body slipping into bed beside him in the small hours of the morning. It was both a relief and a torture to Alexis to have Palpatine so occupied. After his frightening episode – which Alexis later realised was connected to the destruction of some military project – that strange aura which always surrounded the sovereign seemed to have increased tenfold. Aides and servants held their breath and crept on silent feet, cowed by the oppression which hung in air like an incipient thunderstorm.

Lonely, and bereft of even Palpatine's scant attentions, Alexis wandered the villa trying to gaze into his lover's past through the furnishings of the empty rooms. Only some of them had been redecorated to the palatial standards of imperial splendour, others still retained the quaint beauty of a provincial chateau. It was the paintings which fascinated Alexis. They had none of the luminous quality of Core artworks, yet the traditional Naboo paintings had a certain richness to them, even if many of those hanging in Palpatine's villa were in desperate need of restoration.

Many aristocratic portraits, presumably of the Emperor's ancestors, stared down at Alexis with their watery eyes. Most of them had fair features and it was a simple matter to trace the path of that impressive beak of a nose down to its present day owner. One painting in particular fascinated Alexis: a family portrait hung above the mantelpiece of an old-fashioned sitting room. A tall nobleman, with the conspicuous blue eyes and avian nose of the Emperor's antecedents, stood beside a seated woman with a river of copper-blond hair coiled up in the fantastical style favoured by the Naboo aristocracy. Her strict expression and thin lips prevented her from being called beautiful, but her round face and creamy complexion were charming. A small child was seated in her lap, clearly their son, his face a familiar mixture of the two faces; blue eyes misty, staring out at Alexis, almost unseeing.

On another wall of the same room was the same face, alone, in a nursery scene. At perhaps seven or eight years of age, the young boy's eyes were even more lost, as if afflicted by some unimaginable tragedy – lost for the words to convey such a thing. The only other painting of Palpatine – for Alexis was almost certain the child was indeed he – had been painted many years later and hung in another wing of the villa entirely. It was a seated portrait, and its subject wore the sash and insignia which indicated his position as the head of the family, as well as the title of senator painted in gold leaf on the base of the frame. At thirty, grey had already begun to steadily encroach upon the copper-blond given to him by his mother. The years had crystallised those lost features into a picture of dignified determination which could not be disguised even by such sleepy, heavy-lidded eyes. Alexis saw too, the slight lift at the corner of the senator's mouth, which he knew from experience to be an indication of some subtle amusement.  
_  
What happened between those two portraits? _Alexis remembered the Emperor's story of jumping off a bridge. It hadn't seemed sinister before, but now, staring out at this frozen landscape? If only I had the nerve to ask him. But even if Alexis did ask, Palpatine would likely as not brush the question away, gently guiding the conversation to other topics, or perhaps brush the topic out of Alexis' mind entirely.

When Alexis was little, his mother used to read Iulia and him fairy tales before they went to sleep: stories of angels from far away moons, queens, kings, and powerful sorcerers who roamed the galaxy before the birth of the Republic. Dangerous magicians who could bend any mind to their will with a mere thought; such beings were usually the villains of these tales, eventually defeated by a brave and clever prince or princess, or occasionally by the trap of their own greed. Alexis had no doubt that the Emperor – though obviously not evil – was otherwise a perfect representative of those sorcerers of old. For a moment Alexis imagined himself as a prince lost in the interminable rooms of a darkly spellbound castle.

Reality soon settled back in when Alexis returned to Palpatine's rooms. The doors were bedecked with the crimson-masked human pillars who indicated that the monarch was within. Alexis poked his head into the Emperor's study. The figure which met his eyes could not be more different from the ominous fairy tale sorcerer Alexis had been imagining. Soft winter light poured into the study where Palpatine was lying back in the curve of his deep chair, his thin body slipped into its soft recesses. It was almost impossible to distinguish man from chair – velvety black robes and velvety black upholstery merged seamlessly together – but for the bone-pale fingers which still grasped the sculpted armrests. As Alexis drew closer, Palpatine's breath became audible, tracing the gentle rhythm of sleep.

The Emperor had apparently decided that snatching his rest during the day was preferable to sleeping during the night like everyone else. Alexis, finding the situation oddly sweet, raised a hand to pull Palpatine's hood up so that it shaded his face, which he knew Palpatine would prefer should anyone but Alexis enter the room. As he did so, his fingers brushed up against the Emperor's cheek, causing him to murmur in his sleep and lean toward the hand_: "Anakin…" _

Alexis drew his hand away, surprised, causing Palpatine to sigh and shift within the chair. _Anakin? _It sounded like someone's name. In fact, Alexis was pretty much certain it was someone's name and that he'd heard it somewhere before. He just couldn't remember where. However, Palpatine had left his holo-terminal running. Alexis carefully pushed the Emperor's chair around so that it faced away from the terminal. Then, discarding the fact that what he was doing was commonly referred to as treason, Alexis whispered the word "Anakin" into Palpatine's database.

Hundreds of files scrolled up the projection, all of them marked with the Imperial insignia the classified them as state secrets._ "Please confirm voice recognition,"_ the terminal happily announced, _"Please confirm voice recognition," _it repeated in the same loud voice. _Kniffing hell! _Alexis quickly closed his search and restored the legislation Palpatine had been studying. In the chair, Palpatine stirred with a rustle of heavy material. Alexis moved round to crouch beside the chair, as if he'd just turned the chair away from the desk to face him. Then he forced all thoughts of Anakin to the back of his mind, focusing on his concern for the Emperor.

The yellow eyes which flickered open were bloodshot, the edges of the usually pale irises stained orange with seepage. Palpatine's ancient features looked impossibly tired. "You fell asleep," Alexis softly stated the obvious, resting himself obediently against the Emperor's legs as the expected fingers coiled into his hair. "Pleasant dream, huh?"

Palpatine chuckled, still only half awake, and closed his eyes once more. Alexis had to conquer the impulse to ask the Emperor who Anakin was, but he knew he shouldn't; it would only serve to disturb Palpatine's lethargy, which Alexis intended to exploit for as long as possible.

* * *

Mara Jade was waiting for Lady Pestage on the landing platform. The young agent emerged from the alcove just inside the thick doors which separated the warmth of the villa from the chill, nodding to the squadron of snow troopers on guard duty, whose commander snapped off a textbook salute. Tiny flakes of snow were trapped in Jade's bright hair which, swirling in the wind, was the only real note of colour in the bleak vista that met Moteé's gaze as she and her handmaidens walked down the ramp. Moteé herself wore a long, starkly-white fur coat, made from pelt of some vicious animal she couldn't remember the name of that dwelt in the Hoth System. Jewels glittered on her ears and her dark hair was swept up into elegant plaits that wound into an intricate bun. Jade – wearing practical snow camouflage-suiting, with her blaster and lightsaber at her side – treated the Vizier's wife to a perfunctory bow.

"Air Control thought you might be Darth Vader, milady," Jade said by way of greeting.

"How distressing. Is that why you're keeping watch out here in the cold?"

"Something like that… we've also had reports of Rebel agents in the area, so I've sealed all the entrance points except this one. I caught one of them, a Dug, but the others got away and so far he isn't talking."

The walked together out across the platform, looking out at the snowy peaks and down to the dark abyss of the fjord. "It's lovely here in summer," Moteé said absently, "all grass, wildflowers and blue water. The Emperor let Sate and I have the villa to ourselves for several months when we were first married… Are you going to ask Lord Vader to assist with the Dug's interrogation?"

Jade shrugged her shoulders, inhaling deeply the clear mountain air. "I don't think it will come to that. Why are you here?"

"Sate wanted to come himself, but someone has to look after Imperial Centre, and His Majesty appears to be staying put until Vader arrives from the Outer Rim."

The Hand accepted Moteé's avoidance of the question with a professional shake of her copper mane. "So you're the agent of a would-be overprotective mother?"

Lady Pestage laughed, taking the insult to her husband in her stride. Smiling graciously, she echoed Mara's earlier statement: "Something like that."

* * *

The Emperor drifted out of a warm haze. The dream lingered on the edges of his thoughts; he couldn't recall it, only that it had been exquisitely comfortable. Now, however, his back began to complain about the not-so-comfortable position he'd suffered it to endure for so long. There was still much to do, but for now – just for a while – he might allow himself to rest. Alexis was gazing up at him with a mixture of concern and curiosity. So much had happened in the past few days, Palpatine had quite forgotten about the boy's existence. Alexis stood up, busying himself for a few moments, and a glass of wine was placed in the Emperor's left hand, its opaque liquid darkly swirling like the tides of destiny upon which Palpatine meditated.

His thoughts immediately shifted back to Lord Vader's imminent arrival and his stomach knotted with fury. Only his apprentice and a handful of other pilots had survived. The Emperor could only thank the darkness for the reckless spirit which seemed to require Vader to dive into the middle of every fight._ To lose his heir…_the prospect was horrifying. Oh, there were other Force-users who might fill the Dark Lord's place, certainly. Palpatine prided himself on planning for every eventuality, after all. But, after grooming Vader for three decades – virtually from the age of ten – Darth Sidious was unable to visualise having anyone else kneel to him in ritual homage but Anakin Skywalker. In no one else had he found the right mix of Force talent and strategic brilliance.

Developing the man's political acumen had been a challenge, as Vader made a recalcitrant politician at best. The Emperor had been forced to resort to throwing his apprentice into the rancor's den: Xizor continued to be a most useful tool in this regard, and Palpatine was looking forward to the eventual showdown between the two, confident of Vader's eventual success. In any case, the Emperor was sure that, should the worst happen (these things, however unpleasant, had to be considered) there would be a strong successor to take his place as Sith Emperor.

Such morbid thoughts returned Palpatine to his anger at almost losing both apprentice and battle station, as well as ruining his plans for Tarkin's disgrace. It had been a long time since fate had dared oppose the Emperor's will and it filled him with a deep sense of dread. For he was a being with his fingers wrapped tightly around destiny's leash and he knew the signs when he saw them. This was a warning, perhaps the only one he would be given, and Palpatine had to act quickly in order to set in motion events which would ensure the failure of this incursion into his supremacy.

He could feel Vader drawing near, perhaps already entering the Chommell Sector, hastening toward Palpatine with all the blazing impetus of a comet, trailing rage, sadness, excitement and fear in his wake, casting savage light across the icy firmament of the Emperor's soul. _He will believe all this is my fault… is it?_ Events had gone against Palpatine's wishes: such an atypical occurrence would fill Vader with both fear and hope. Hope that his Master was not infallible, and fear that his belief in Palpatine's infallibility was not justified. Or perhaps Vader's ire would fall solely upon the rebel terrorists? There was no way of knowing which way the man's temper would turn. The Emperor could still recall the shock quivering in Tyranus' spirit when he realised that Palpatine could not foresee everything: _"No, my lord, but this is… unexpected."_That moment every apprentice comes to at last; the realisation that he is the arbiter of his own destiny. The realisation that ended with Darth Plagueis wound in blood-stained sheets, his vaunted wisdom all for naught.

No… Vader might fight the bit occasionally – like the proud, highly strung thoroughbred he was – but he would always belong to his Master. The Emperor made sure long ago that he was without rivals in the possession of Anakin Skywalker's soul. And how it had been offered up! Tender and oh, so very lost – desperate to be acknowledged, to be welcomed finally into the darkness that was his birth right. Yet fear whispered through the Emperor's flesh and he shivered.

Something softly warm touched his cheek and it took a moment for Palpatine to register it as a kiss. Turning his head, he met the blue eyes of the most handsome dream-creature imaginable. The crystal glass was removed from Palpatine's hand and brought to the creature's lovely, full lips. "There – it's not poisoned," Alexis murmured, passing the drink back to the Emperor, "you can stop staring down at it suspiciously."

"Well…" Palpatine smiled, amused despite himself, "if we wish to test your hypothesis, we should wait at least twenty minutes for possible collapse. Besides, it will give the bottle time to breathe."

Alexis laughed, taking a gulp from his own glass, nothing refined, just the unconscious grace of a young colt. _It is not unnatural, I suppose, that I am thinking of Anakin Skywalker rather than this strange creature I have who resembles him_… The boy had little to no signature in the Force; he floated in the Sith Master's vision like a particle of dust caught in the light. Yet, for a moment, Alexis and Anakin merged and the Emperor blinked, furiously attempting to recall every detail of Anakin to his memory. But almost two decades separated Palpatine from that young Jedi; he could not perfectly imagine the young man he had known so well, upon whom – to the Emperor's acute distress – Alexis' features were beginning to appear. "Your Majesty?" Alexis queried, a hand settling on exactly the spot where Palpatine's neck was beginning to ache. "…Are you alright, sire?"

In one with Force talent, such a thing would indicate an unusual empathy with the Emperor's aura. But this, too, was only a parody of true connection. For the boy lacked the mental barriers of a sensitive, nor was he able to reciprocate through the channel Palpatine had established with him. The emotions the Emperor shared with Alexis' mind were slowly destroying the boy's will, as the Sith Lord's stronger consciousness gradually reduced him to little more than a pliant slave, receptive to nothing but the shifting currents of Palpatine's desires. "Perfectly… merely preoccupied…" He took a sip of the wine: richly smooth and fragrant, it was exactly the vintage he would have chosen. He did not care if Alexis' decision was a conscious one or not. Palpatine found his pride curiously displaced by a hunger for Alexis' ministrations. The derogative thoughts toward both himself and Alexis dissipated as the Emperor, unable to continue to deriding his own misplaced lust, accepted the boy – and the pleasures he brought – as an instrument toward a private necessity.

_But not right now._ Lord Vader was due to arrive on Naboo very shortly and it was hardly desirable for him to set eyes on Alexis…

* * *

Theed, in some ways, felt even lonelier than the Emperor's villa. Alexis wandered at a loss through its bright, bustling streets. Palpatine seemed convinced that Alexis was bored, and arranged for him to spend a couple of days in the capital as compensation for being so busy. This seemed odd to Alexis, since the Emperor was certainly astute enough to realise that Alexis' life now consisted of fitting in and around the margins of Palpatine's schedule. This fact had never bothered the sovereign before, which made Alexis suspicious. If it had been anyone else, he would have suspected Palpatine of being involved with someone else. But that was nonsensical. Alexis knew he was His Majesty's only lover. Not because the Emperor told him so (although he had) but because of what was silently communicated between them through the language of skin. Besides, if Palpatine did desire another, he need not bother with pretence – he would calmly explain the matter to Alexis and Alexis would abide by his wishes. Everyone abided by the Emperor's wishes. His suspicion made no sense._ Perhaps the mysterious Anakin…? _

Alexis kicked a loose stone. Strolling along, he reached into his pocket to finger a silver credit-chip with a truly ludicrous sum loaded onto it – it was making Alexis edgy just carrying it. In truth, he was barely staving off misery.

The cafes and gardens were teeming with beings – mostly humans. Tables were bunched together under provincial, loudly dyed shade-sails, surrounded by old-fashioned stone architecture; children ran out in front of waitresses and buskers, and around cheerfully splashing fountains which sparkled under the sun. Everyone wore colourful holiday garments, which made Alexis feel very out of place in his stark, ultra-Coruscanti clothing.

At first, it had been fun – a relief to escape his relentless awareness of the absolute supremacy which emanated so effortlessly from Palpatine; away from Alexis' job, although he didn't get paid. He stuffed his fingers back into his pocket, running them around the edges of the chip. This wasn't payment… it was… it was… something else. There was no exchange taking place: the credits had been given to him, like the clothes, because Palpatine considered them appropriate. Neither Alexis nor the Emperor (Alexis was pretty sure) thought of whatever lay between them as _services rendered_. If that were the case, Alexis would have stuffed the entire six digit number idling in his trouser pocket into his savings account to pay his way through the Academy and buy himself a good commission at the end of his training. _And Palpatine…_? His Majesty, Alexis guessed, would probably be treating Alexis very differently.

He used the chip to buy himself a pot of tisane (being with the Emperor had weaned Alexis off stim-kaf and gotten him addicted to herbal teas) and some lunch. He wondered if the Emperor had assigned anyone to watch him from afar. He'd been to the Royal Museum and several art galleries – it was all pretty boring compared to the modern galleries on Imperial Centre. If Iulia were with him, it would have been different. She would have dragged him into the boutique shops, enjoyed learning about Naboo's history, and had fun in the galleries telling him he had no taste. _And Palpatine would have…_ Alexis sighed and tried his tea. It was the wrong flavour.

"Lex!"

_Sending it back would probably be rude..._

"_Oi!_ Lex!" Alexis looked up and his mouth drooped open. Wading through tables toward him was Drav. He looked just the same as ever: his strong, kaf-coloured face mostly brilliant dark eyes and wide flashing smile. He thumped Alexis on the shoulder and flung himself down opposite him, signalling the waitress to bring another cup. "Hey, long time no see! I didn't know you drunk this fancy muck." Those cheerful eyes slid lazily over Alexis' clothes. "Well, my pal Lex has gone up in the world! Zao told us you'd been transferred. I've been trying to get hold of you for _ages_!"

Alexis grappled with his tongue in an attempt to formulate some kind of response. "Y-yeah…"

"Tried to contact that sister of yours, but she was missing too. To be honest I was starting to think one of you might have… done something." He gave a hollow chuckle. "So…?"

"It's classified, Drav. I can't talk about it. What about you? What… what are _you _doing on Naboo?"

His friend shifted, leaning back, giving Alexis a rather cold, speculative look. Yet it passed so quickly he might have thought he'd imagined it. "Oh, _well…_ my mother's half-Naboo. As soon as she found out there was going to be a municipal holiday, she became obsessed with all of us going to see our grandparents in Theed. I'd been stupid enough to tell her I had some leave saved up." He shook his head, "This place is such a dive. I can't see why the Emperor would want to come back – if that man had just stayed in his palace I wouldn't be in here hiding from my grandmother." Drav complained about the Emperor's decision the way beings complained about the weather, which made Alexis smile.

He just nodded, letting Drav talk. Before Palpatine he'd fantasied about Drav almost every day. He was everything Alexis had wanted to be: careless, confident, successful… happy in his casually dismissive way. Alexis had always cared too much about appearing loyal to ever achieve that kind of confidence of knowing his place in the world. Now Drav was here: almost larger than life, a carefree invitation to forgetting – just for a little while – about the heavy spell the Emperor cast over his senses. There was nothing measured, nothing precious about Drav.

He wasn't sure quite how it happened, but he ended wandering the streets of Theed with his friend giving a dry commentary on the sights and occasionally ducking down another street upon seeing one of Drav's relatives. "They're ridiculous, these people!" Drav complained as they strolled along the side of a canal. "Look at them!"

Alexis stared bemusedly, "Um…?" Children were scooting around on the water in archaic paddle-boats, laughing and splashing each other.

"I mean, they look _happy_, right? But there's so much going on you won't see because you're not one of them. My mother told me my grandfather didn't approve of me. The old man gave me a hug and told me I was cool, you know? But, apparently, he was wearing dark green – which means he was protesting our visit. I mean – _kniffing hell_ – can't he just _say_ he thinks we're losers? Apparently different shades of green mean different degrees of objection to the status quo. I mean, they're _messed up! _I can't _believe _someone as level-headed as the Emperor came from this pile of loons."

Alexis scanned the crowd, interestingly, there was not one person wearing green. "Do you know what black means?" he asked, suddenly worried about the potential meanings in his own attire.

Drav waved a hand dismissively, "Oh, you're fine. As far as I can remember, black is mostly about responsibility and sadness and shit like that." Alexis thought of the Emperor's clothes – so much black. "My mother tried to teach me, but it's the stupidest tradition."_ What did it mean that Moteé had dressed him in black? Was it because of his uniform or was she trying to give him a message – a message Palpatine would understand? _

His companion slapped him on the back, "It's not worth worrying about, Lex, honestly. My grandfather's a nerf-herding moron." Drav left his hand on Alexis' shoulder. "You know… we never had the chance to finish what we started that night…" Drav slid his hand down Alexis' spine to rest comfortably on his arse. But there were none of the sensations evoked when the Emperor touched him. This was just a touch, unaccompanied by pleasure. He wanted Drav to reach him, to prove he was still attracted to _normal_ contact, that he didn't need Palpatine's bewitchments in order to feel anything. To fling something in the face of Palpatine's disinterest. But there was no magic here, no dizzy stars orbiting his brain, just Drav's hand – unsupported and meaningless. Alexis felt a sudden surge of hatred toward both Palpatine and Drav: the one for addicting him and the other for showing up that addiction. He didn't want to_ need _someone who could dismiss him so easily.

He stared out at the promenade and said: "That woman's wearing green."

Drav's hand dropped away as he followed Alexis' gaze. An old woman was sitting on a public bench, doing some kind of needlework. Her bulky figure was concealed by a pale green dress with quilted sleeves. A straw hat perched atop her messy grey hair and she frowned into her embroidery frame. She sat in the shadow of a marbled statue of Palpatine, carved when he was Chancellor of the Republic. The statue was caught mid-speech, one hand eloquently thrust forward, declaiming silently to the holiday-makers along the canal. A bird was sitting on its head with an eye to the lunch that sat beside the old woman.

"That is _exactly_ the kind of thing I'm talking about!" Drav exclaimed, striding forward toward the old lady. "I bet she thinks she's so _clever_ too, disrespecting our Emperor! If she'd been flashing a placard she'd have been shot by now! Hey!_ You_! Yeah – _you! _Old woman!"

The lady in the green dress looked up, blinking at Drav short-sightedly. The bird took off. Drav grabbed her bag and threw it aside, spilling needles, pins and threads across the pavement. Alexis followed his friend's lead and seized her straw hat, tossing it to the winds. It landed in the water. Drav was right; if the woman had tried this on Imperial Centre she would have been shot. No one could be allowed to criticise His Imperial Majesty. The old lady looked up at them and Alexis found himself face to face with a pair of pair of wintery blue eyes. "Leave me alone, _you monsters!" _she cried, desperately trying to gather the pins still rolling away. Drav ground his boot into her embroidery and grabbed her by her thinning hair.

"How _dare_ you disrespect the Emperor!-?" Drav hissed as she screamed. "How _dare_ you, _you old bitch_!" He slapped her across the face. She howled and stabbed his hand with a needle, giving him a vicious kick to the groin, which made him stumble back.

She spat at Drav, her spittle landing on his boots, and glared furiously at them both, "You think you're _something_ because of _him?_" she snarled imperiously, her eyes flashing as she pointed at the statue. "He's _nothing!_ In a thousand years people will_ laugh_ at his grand ambitions! _And you!_ You're _less than nothing_!" Her accent was exactly the same as Palpatine's. There were other similarities too: the odd streak of copper in her loose grey hair and the way she clenched her jaw in fury. They must be about the same age, which disturbed Alexis immensely, making him back away from her.

Drav's hand went for his holster, his face red. "I'll show _you_ nothing, _you old hag!"_

_"No!"_Alexis cried, but his friend took no notice. "NO!" he yelled again as Drav took aim, flicking out his own weapon. A blaster bolt burnt through the air and Drav dropped to the pavement, stunned. Alexis – appalled at himself – met the steely eyes of the old woman over Drav's motionless body.

"It is sedition to protest the gracious rule of His Imperial Majesty," Alexis said coldly, feeling awful for not quite believing his own words; words which he had felt so sure of before this moment, just like his attraction to Drav.

"Help me pick up my things," she ordered him and, to his surprise, he found himself gathering up her embroidery. No one was paying them any attention - in fact everyone was studiously ignoring the scene. When it was all back in her bag, she turned to regard him suspiciously. "You should be at home helping your parents," the woman lectured him, "not out here bullying people." He moved to drag Drav away, "Leave him there," she told him. She glanced up at the statue and back to Drav. "He makes a better picture than I did." And she bundled herself off, with Alexis standing at the foot of the marble Palpatine, beside his unconscious friend. The bird resettled on the statue's shoulder, probably wondering if Alexis had any food.

Alexis gazed up at Palpatine's empty stone eyes, feeling even more lost than before. He left Drav lying at the foot of the statue.

* * *

When the Emperor's shuttle docked briefly at Theed, on its way back into orbit where _Lanvarok_ was waiting, Alexis rushed to Palpatine's private cabin and into his arms. The Emperor was caught off guard by such a display – apparently genuine. His mind had still been busy dissecting his tense interview with Lord Vader, an unusually cold, brittle affair. His apprentice had been impenetrable. One gift Alexis had given Palpatine, however, was the ability to finally remove himself from the sentiment with which had always clouded his treatment of his apprentice; the legacy of his infatuation with Anakin Skywalker. _I have spoilt him_, he thought, _he believes he has a right to my affections regardless of his behaviour. _It had irritated the Emperor immensely and he felt inordinately proud of the chill, professional tone he had taken with his disciple.

Meanwhile, Alexis was embracing him and murmuring honorifics tenderly, as though they had been apart for a year rather than a few days. Bright and affectionate, the boy still had the power to shock the Emperor with his beauty and exuberance. "Can you really have missed me so much?" he inquired, vaguely bewildered at his pet's emotion as Alexis clung to him.

A story came rolling off the child's tongue about loneliness, a friend he'd met, and an old woman. None of it made much sense and, in truth, Palpatine was only half-listening, too focused on those earnest deep blue eyes and the arms around his waist. It felt right to have this again, this warm encirclement, and he realised he had missed it more than he had expected. "And I didn't know what to do because I couldn't let anyone insult you, but she was just this harmless old lady minding her own business and Drav was…"

"Shhh…" the Emperor whispered, running his bone-white fingers through that lovely blond hair. "It is no longer your duty to worry about such fools. Your duty is my pleasure and in this I find myself eminently satisfied." He shared this satisfaction with Alexis, making the boy shiver all over and his eyes sparkle again.

Palpatine was so good at reducing the complexities of Alexis' life down to the simplest of equations.


	6. The Crystal Theatre

**ALEXIS VI: The Crystal Theatre**

* * *

Alexis was sprawled naked across the dark coverlets of the bed reading a holo-book. In the last few days he'd taken to sleeping away large portions of the day to lie awake during the night, helping the Emperor through the alternating bouts of nightmares and insomnia which plagued the sovereign. After their return to Imperial Centre, Palpatine had been swamped with pressing duties and he just about collapsed into Alexis' arms in the evenings. And, although Alexis still worried about Iulia, he felt himself beginning to fall into the routine of his new life at this altitude. He'd left his old one lying with Drav on the canal promenade in Theed. It was the same when he and Iulia first returned to Coruscant after their father's death. Their lives had vanished, leaving them to find new ones within unfamiliar parameters. Iulia, almost a decade older than Alexis, had coped less well with their abrupt shift in station. But Alexis had just wanted to forget – to find his new place in the galaxy and forget. Now he had a new place yet again.

What passed between His Imperial Majesty and Alexis was something that happened behind the heavy doors of Palpatine's private chambers. Apart from the vizier and his wife – and, unfortunately, Commander Jade – everyone thought of Alexis as a… a personal servant or a secretary. A pretense Palpatine passively encouraged simply because it was easier to dictate memoranda in the middle of the night to the being in bed next to him that to summon an aide from down the hall and because Alexis had fallen into the habit on Naboo. He helped him in the mornings, brewed him tea and took the usual trays and holo-documents from the droids and aides who were only too grateful to give them to Alexis rather than suffer the sovereign's sulphurous glare. When Palpatine took his usual early walk in the gardens, Alexis accompanied him and the Emperor would take Alexis' arm instead of a cane. And when Palpatine departed for the day, then Alexis would sleep.

His favourite times occurred in the first few hours past midnight, when Palpatine would often awaken shivering and cold beside him and they would talk quietly together like any two beings and sometimes… very rarely… the Emperor would tell him stories. Wonderful, tragic, terrible stories and Alexis was never sure which ones Palpatine himself had witnessed and which were from history or some arcane mythology. Volara Ts'umin's stories had been about young heroes and heroines, about doing the right thing despite dark quests and horrible monsters. The Emperor's stories weren't like that at all. Alexis would lie on his back with one arm wrapped around Palpatine, gazing up at the ceiling while the sovereign rested his head in the curve of Alexis' neck – his yellow eyes closed – and recited in his rich, evocative voice; complicated tales with no heroes or villains, just beings with desires and fears, where no choices were right, and the characters' very virtues were what often caused their tales to end in tragedy; adult bed-time stories which often lingered with him long after the telling, especially if Palpatine drifted off to sleep half-way through, leaving Alexis to beg the ending from his lips the next night.

Sometimes they had sex afterwards. Or rather, the Emperor would pleasure Alexis and be pleasured in turn. Palpatine had never submitted his body to Alexis and had never asked Alexis to submit to him in such a way either. But Alexis was never left unsatisfied, on the contrary, quite often he felt too satisfied, too lost in the dizzy, sorcerous hold Palpatine had over his body, unable to string thoughts together as that mysterious power caressed him with clever, wrinkled fingers. It was ironic, considering the premise of their relationship, that it was the Emperor himself who often went without. It wasn't that Alexis didn't try, but Palpatine was too old, only occasionally capable of physical release, and disinclined to bother with any kind of pharmaceutical aid. But Alexis made sure to always give him the next best thing: kissing and stroking as tenderly as he could.

He often wished that he'd come to know Palpatine earlier, before the Jedi had wrought their horrible spells across his face – before Palpatine felt the need for obscuring garments, even in bed. If only Alexis had been born before the Empire, and they had met when Palpatine still resembled the senatorial portrait Alexis had seen. He felt a very keen sense of loss at never being able to know his lover in his prime. Alexis had great contempt for the enigmatic Anakin who surely must have been the man the Emperor had spoken of on the journey to Naboo, who had loved someone else. This person who could have had so much more than Alexis would ever be able to, but had thrown it away, leaving Alexis to care for what remained.

"I wish for you to accompany me tonight," the words dripped languorously off Palpatine's tongue as his fingers slid up through Alexis' hair which, left uncut, had (to Palpatine's delight) developed a slight curl. Alexis put aside his holo-book and stretched, sitting up and leaning into the Emperor's touch. The two of them were alone in Palpatine's apartments, but for the small, glossy droids who were busily adjusting the heavy brocade folds of the sovereign's ceremonial robes. Alexis was always fascinated by the transformation of the wraith whose ruined body he now knew so intimately to this shadowed vision of inviolate majesty. It wasn't so much that such royal garments changed Palpatine, as that they placed his implacable voice and coldly omniscient saffron eyes in their proper context. Alexis stood to assist the droids, inadvertently causing them to scatter. He shook his head and began to do it himself, leaning down to do up the fastenings of the royal cloak.

He lowered his eyes to the marble. "Your Majesty, I'd rather not…" Alexis knew it was futile even as he said it, as Palpatine was not the sort of man who expressed wishes he didn't fully expect to see fulfilled, "…the last time I went to something with you I–"

A white hand caught his chin and drew it closer to meet strict golden eyes. "You will stand behind my chair, hold a datapad, and perhaps fetch me glasses of wine. Does that satisfy your fears?" Alexis nodded; relieved he wouldn't have to talk to any more potential assassins. It didn't matter that he would be serving Palpatine. Everyone served the Emperor, whether by bringing him drinks or bringing him victories. Alexis saw no dishonour in such a thing. _"My dear one…"_the sovereign murmured tenderly as the ancient fingers caressed his nakedness and Alexis leant into Palpatine's touch, his skin flush against luxurious fabric. They kissed.

No one else's touch could be compared to it. Just being in the same room as Palpatine could make Alexis' nerves thrum with pleasure. At first it was something he only felt when they were in bed together, but slowly the sensations spread into all his interaction with the Emperor until he ached with it. It didn't matter that Palpatine was old and ugly, or he kept Alexis shut up in the imperial apartments like a pleasure-slave… in the end, it didn't even matter that he was the Emperor. All that mattered were the sensations he shared with this majestic, astonishing being, able to make his nerves pulse wildly without even a single caress. "I love you…" he whispered.

A harsh laugh: "What an _idiotic_ thought! Please, Alexis – much as I appreciate the gesture – such flattery is beyond the palate of even an emperor's ego." The hands settled around his waist. "_Really,_my boy, you have no need to embarrass yourself on my account."

The careless dismissal struck Alexis like a fierce backhand across the face, but he couldn't lash out, couldn't demand anything from Palpatine. "You undervalue yourself, sire," he said softly, running his fingers intimately down the velvet and brocade, tracing the lines of dark embroidery, trying to make the Emperor understand what he'd grown to feel, willing the perceptive monarch to look into his mind and_ sense _it.

The Emperor gave him an arch look, his glittering eyes skeptical, his voice lightening into a patronising chuckle. "Is that so?" It was the kind, humorous, indulgent tone a parent might use on a youngling who insists on having his invisible friend placed in the chair next to him at dinner.

Alexis struggled to think of something – anything – to say in the face of the supreme ridicule which robbed him of words._ I am sick of being treated like a child! _"Yes it is," he said, finally finding his voice again, a high flush in his cheeks. He met the Emperor glare for glare, grabbing Palpatine by the shoulders, treasonous words tumbling fearlessly out of him as if it were another man speaking: "And d-don't – don't you _dare _laugh at me!_ You could have had anyone!_ If an… an _emperor_ is all you are, then_ I'm _only a guard and that makes you just as shallow as you say I am! I love you because you _deserve to be loved _and… and I'm s-sorry Anakin didn't!"

He knew the moment he said the name that he'd gone too far. He let go of the Emperor's shoulders. "I'm… I… I didn't mean–!" Alexis stepped away, slipping slightly on the marble, instinctively putting distance between himself and that sunflare gaze as the air changed and all that was pleasure turned to something black and terrible.

"Where did you hear that name?" the Emperor asked. He could have been calm but for the icy hatred shining in his saffron eyes; fury rolling off him in horrible black waves. Alexis couldn't answer, couldn't do anything but cringe and plead. A bolt of sizzling power shot from Palpatine's fingers, making Alexis scream and knocking him across the smooth marble. "Answer my question, Alexis…" the Emperor continued in the same dryly contented tone, a stream of crackling blue agony striking the young man writhing on the floor.

"You!" Alexis gasped out, shaking all over, curled up in a foetal position on the cold stone, "Y-you said it… i-in… your sleep – I'm sorry! P-please don't – please… p-please!"

The shadow glided closer to Alexis; Palpatine's soft black shoes made almost no noise, yet his light footfalls seemed unnaturally loud. The Emperor knelt elegantly beside the shivering young man, his ornate robes spread out across the marble. Frail hands pulled Alexis' head into Palpatine's lap. Tears trailing from his blue eyes, Alexis made no attempt to resist as one of those hands gently ruffled his hair, reeling from such a merciless betrayal. "My dear child," the Emperor said softly, as if nothing had happened, "you should not speak of what you do not understand." It was a ruthless reassertion of the status quo which Alexis in too much pain to protest. "Shall I tell you about Anakin… would you like that?" An a ancient, deadly hand softly stroked Alexis' cheek.

A moment passed before Alexis realised that he'd been asked a question. He hated himself for burying his face in the heavy velvet, for being weak enough to accept such false comfort – but there was no one else. His fate depended solely on the man who cradled Alexis' head so lovingly; he had no other recourse. "N-no," he managed hoarsely, "no, please, M-majesty,_ I'm s-sorry…_"

_"No…?_You aren't curious?" Alexis shuddered in Palpatine's embrace – he wished he'd never heard the name. "I think you deserve to know about Anakin Skywalker after such a… passionate declaration, don't you?" The Emperor's voice wound itself around Alexis like a poisonous net, trapping him it its thick coils.

"N-no, sire… I mean… yes, sire – I…"

"Anakin Skywalker," Palpatine began, still running his fingers affectionately through Alexis' hair, "was a gifted Jedi general when the knightly order were still the defenders of the state – before they fell to dishonour and treason," the Emperor's words were weighted with cool amusement. "And although the Jedi forbade the attachment of love. Anakin had two great loves: a fellow Jedi he loved like a brother and a beautiful senator whom he made his wife. However, Jedi Skywalker had also attracted the attention of a third individual: a patient statesman who determined that one day he would have Anakin for himself. He befriended the young man and gradually turned him against his fellow Jedi, and orchestrated a series of events when led to Anakin murdering his beloved wife. Tormented, the only being Anakin could turn to was the statesman, who gloried in the sole possession of the young man's loyalty."

"What happened?" Alexis breathed, unable to resist, under the spell of Palpatine's voice.

"The day after the statesman's triumph, Anakin died in a duel with his former Jedi companion."

There was nothing to say. Alexis had imagined the Emperor feeling the same unrequited lust for the mysterious Anakin as Alexis used to feel for Drav, but of course Alexis simply didn't exist on the same scale as Palpatine. This was the sort of thing that happened in the heavy literature Iulia liked to read occasionally. The Emperor wasn't the sort of man who could tolerate unrequited desire. He had destroyed the man he had loved rather than let anyone else have him. Anything but total ownership of everything he wanted was failure, and failure was unacceptable. The Emperor couldn't even say it directly, talking about himself like a character in one of his stories. And Alexis had thrown it in his face. That same remorseless drive which led to Palpatine's meteoric ascension hobbled his ability to love; the best Alexis could ever hope for – he suddenly knew – would be benevolent possession.

Hurt and upset, he felt as though he had fallen into the sea of the Emperor's character and finally hit the bottom. He could at last see beneath that immense pride the fear he'd felt in Palpatine's body when they had first slept together – how those pale hands had trembled! And how could he return Alexis' feelings, when even Alexis had seen what they had as something shameful? What was true of him was ten times as true for the Emperor. To Palpatine, lonely, disfigured, proud Palpatine who could never remember the nightmares that tormented him and who went for years without anyone – who had longed for a powerful magician like himself, a handsome and gifted general – Alexis' love was an unacceptable insult. He could only imagine their liaison must have been the result of true desperation on the Emperor's part. "Please forgive me, Your Majesty," Alexis whispered numbly, unable to meet the yellow eyes, "I was impertinent." It didn't matter than the Emperor had forbidden apologies; it was necessary Alexis say it. There was nothing else he could do. He felt utterly defeated.

Palpatine made a small noise between a grunt and a sigh and stood up. Alexis unconsciously clung to the Emperor's robes, but Palpatine brushed his hands away, leaving Alexis lying naked on the marble. "Go and make yourself presentable," he ordered, terse and unimpressed.

Alexis stumbled to his feet and retreated, sore all over from the cruel magic. Then it occurred to him and he turned back to the Emperor. "I'm… still attending… the opera?" he slurred, dazed.

"You won't be attending the opera, Alexis, you will be attending _me_."

* * *

Corusca gems suited Moteé, Sate Pestage reflected. The precious crystals glowed like a thousand tiny candles, woven together in a décolletage of silver and light over his wife's porcelain complexion. They nestled too in her dark, upswept hair, and swayed gracefully from her ears. It was fitting too that, although they appeared the most delicate of jewels, Corusca gems were so hard they could slice through even transparisteel. Such dazzling jewellery, combined with her simple black dress, gave Moteé a look of ultimate sophistication. The vizier found it almost impossible to look away. "You look beautiful," he told her as she gave her gloves to a velvet-cloaked handmaiden. They had arrived first in the Imperial Box, causing only a smattering of uninterested clapping from the other balconies and the stalls below.

Moteé's response was typical, her eyes raking over him dismissively: "Thank you, husband, but it isn't much of an achievement in these seats." She leaned a little closer as he took his seat next to her, "I had no idea that Lord Vader would be here. I was under the impression he disliked opera."

Sate rotated in his chair, staring at the unmistakable armoured silhouette approaching them. He turned back to Moteé, "Obviously his Lordship is in a rare mood for entertainment," he replied, looking a little dazed. His wife took his hand.

"Yes," she agreed distractedly, "perhaps we shall have fireworks later… Ah! Lord Vader, what an unexpected delight!"

* * *

In the Imperial Box it was silent; the sound filters had been engaged, blocking out the theatre full of beings chattering beyond, and those favoured few who had been invited to sit with Palpatine bowed or curtsied solemnly. Alexis lowered his eyes to his datapad – strangely enough, a droid had seen fit to hand him Palpatine's actual social diary – and hovered just behind the Emperor trying not to look at anyone.

A tall shadow fell across his path and Alexis took an unconscious step closer to the Emperor. It was the same implacable suit of black armour he remembered from his childhood and, although Alexis was now almost as tall, he felt like a small, scared boy in the presence of Palpatine's Sith warlord: again watching the man stride up and loom over the father Alexis had idolised, giving him his mandate as governor. And once more… once more Lord Vader had stalked the corridors of the governor's palace, three standard years ago when Alexis has found his father slumped over, a blaster lying on the floor beside his cold hand, setting Iulia and Alexis adrift on an uncertain sea; their inheritance forfeit, to be spat on by their late father's officers as if rebellion were in their genes. He shivered, as if the caparisoned Dark Lord were one of the ill-omened black lizards of Sullust, which were said to herald catastrophe when they flicked out their squamous orange tongues.

_"My Master,"_ murmured the deep-voiced vocabulator that had awoken him in the night when they first returned to Coruscant. Darth Vader had entered his father's study and found Alexis crouched over Governor Ts'umin's body and put the toe of his boot to the side of the dead man: _He's not the first man to have been deceived by a woman. Still, he might have been strong enough to have killed her himself instead of leaving it to me. _

Standing in the imperial box, Alexis was completely taken aback when the Sith Lord gracefully knelt before him, bowing his dark helm low. It seemed mad to imagine Darth Vader paying such homage to anyone. It took Alexis a moment before he remembered he was standing beside the Emperor; the centre of the galaxy before whom everyone, even men such as Lord Vader, must prostrate themselves. Palpatine lifted a small, ivory hand and motioned for Alexis' nightmare to stand. "My friend," Palpatine murmured affectionately, "I had not thought to see you here… shall we?" And those fingers extended to slip under a large, leather glove as Vader stood and assisted the Emperor down the five steep steps and into the beautiful ebony chair which dominated the opera box just as someone turned off the aural sealant.

The sound rose like thunder from the theatre beyond. It resounded in raucous waves and when the Emperor took his seat and raised a withered hand, it only grew more fervent. Every being in the theatre seemed to be on their feet cheering and clapping, some even launching into the familiar, robust chorus of _Glory to the Empire._Alexis didn't know what to feel. He had always sung it passionately… yet now it left him feeling hollow; in fact, his entire being felt empty, as if he were merely a cipher standing with a datapad. Utterly insignificant.

He walked over to the cabinet behind the rich curtains and filled a crystal glass with one of the Emperor's favourite wines. Alexis gazed blankly at the drink he had automatically poured for the sovereign, as if wondering why he'd done it. He glanced sideways surreptitiously: no one was watching him, half hidden behind red velvet. All eyes were on the Emperor.

Alexis drained the glass of dark green liquid in one smooth motion.

* * *

From his chair to the right of Palpatine's, Darth Vader observed the company with interest. Apart from Palpatine, whose darkly-satisfied smile might mean anything, no one really seemed to be enjoying the opera. For the Dark Lord himself, although he could appreciate fine music, it held little interest. He had come here purely to speak with the Emperor. Their last meeting had gravely disturbed Vader. Palpatine had been harsh and half-mad, seeming to blame his apprentice for the annihilation of the Death Star, irrespective of the fact that Vader had advised against the project in the first place and that the Emperor had given the command to Tarkin, not his apprentice. Palpatine was vicious and unsparing, seemingly uncaring that his pupil had nearly perished, and utterly unwilling to accept any of the blame himself. Even the death of Obi-Wan garnered Vader no favours, Palpatine had never forgiven Vader for losing on Mustafar. The mention of Kenobi's mysterious apprentice only further incensed the Emperor, who had mocked Vader's inability to shoot down a mere padawan. This from a man who didn't even know how to drive a skycar.

The Dark Lord, who had just endured days of privation flying his crippled TIE to the nearest station, had been cut to the quick and only shock and exhaustion had prevented him drawing his lightsaber. He had not been called into the imperial presence since, giving him the distinct impression that the Emperor was sulking. He had begun to believe that the destruction of the Death Star had disturbed Palpatine's mind and sent him into a fit of senile psychosis. Vader's cold fury at such irrational treatment had only mounted and he had come to the opera fully expecting to deal with the same icy rejection, but it was urgent they discuss the distribution of the fleet and the Dark Lord was forced to put aside his anger to try again – for the sake of the galaxy. The rebel victory could not be allowed to threaten the unity of the Empire.

Vader had thus been taken completely off guard by how amiable the Sith Master had seemed upon his apprentice's unexpected advent in the opera box and had automatically accepted the hand Palpatine had offered him. Still, handing Palpatine into his chair before the entire auditorium had been a calculated thing and Vader congratulated himself on keeping his temper in check. It was a message to Palpatine just as much as the assembled crowds and the Emperor had been forced to accept the public gesture gracefully. As the sovereign seemed ill inclined to talk during the performance, the Sith Lord would have to wait patiently until interval before speaking to him and so passed the time studying his companions in the Imperial Box.

Vizier Pestage seemed unusually tense through his pompous façade, and kept throwing slightly-too-casual glances at both Sith Lords. And, although Lady Pestage kept her serene dark eyes on the stage, he could sense that her attention was elsewhere. It made Vader uneasy, as the icy waters of _her_aura were not easily disturbed. Ars Dangor too, seemed out of sorts and indifferent toward the performance. He was glaring at the black-liveried servant who had just served Palpatine a glass of wine. The Dark Lord, curious as to why such a man would feel any enmity toward a simple functionary, turned his attention to the servant who stood two steps back from the Emperor's chair.

With a slight creak of leather, Vader shifted in his seat and subtly turned his head. The servant was a tall young man with fair features, his hair worn slightly longer than the regulation length. He wore the usual black uniform of the Emperor's personal servants and he echoed with Palpatine's signature so strongly that it was almost impossible to sense anything of the thoughts of the servant himself. It happened sometimes, when beings with a very low sensitivity to the Force spent too much time around a powerful Jedi or Sith. They began to lose themselves in the Force-user's aura. Vader himself rotated his officers to prevent this, as he had no need for stupefied subordinates. With a Sith Master such as Palpatine, who no longer made any effort to conceal the long shadow he cast in the Force, and who had resided in one place for so many years, the effects were more pronounced. His Master's darkly seductive aura pervaded the entire palace and enfolded its denizens like a thick mist. Yet Vader had never before seen a case so advanced and wondered idly what the young man had done to merit whatever punishments Palpatine had metered out to render him thus.

The Sith Lord frowned and turned his attention back to his Master, further angered by the distinct feeling that he was missing something important.

* * *

During the interval, Palpatine dismissed everyone except Lord Vader and the party retired to a nearby salon to stand and refresh themselves. Alexis, not knowing what to do, remained beside the closed ornate doors with the silent Imperial Guards. One of Moteé's cloaked handmaidens approached him. "Alexis?" she whispered cautiously, her face hidden as effectively as Palpatine's beneath her deep grey velvet hood.

He bowed to her. "Does Lady Pestage have a message for me?"

In reply, the handmaiden quietly motioned for him to follow her and led Alexis into a small antechamber, shutting the door carefully behind them. She pushed her hood back: it was Iulia.

Alexis gaped and was about to fling his arms around his sister when she shook her head vehemently took a step back. "Don't!" she hissed fiercely, pulling her cloak low again. "What are you _doing_here?" His sister did not sound at all happy to see him. She sounded worried and angry.

"What about you? Your code was disconnected.I had no idea where you–!"

_"I can't talk about it here._How did you become one of the Emperor's servants?" Iulia's voice was a frightened hiss.

"I'm…" he struggled, not understanding why Iulia was behaving so strangely and wresting whether or not to tell her the truth. "I'm not… in his service. Well, not like that…" She would find out through Lady Pestage eventually if Alexis didn't tell her now. And Iulia was his sister. "I'm… His Majesty…" The words stuck in his throat, burning shamefully in his gut. "I'm… having sex with him."

Iulia didn't immediately understand, "What – with _who…?"_

"With the Emperor."

His sister's face twisted in astonishment. "I… I don't believe you..."

"It's true. I tried to tell you, but… and then I couldn't get through…"

Iulia was shaking her head. She backed away from him. "Y-you were always hopeless at lying. You're not really… with that…_ that…?"_Disgust, horror and shock mingled in her voice as she tried to find words to describe Palpatine.

"It's not as bad as it sounds, really it isn't –!" She stared at him mutely. "We… we met in the palace gardens. It was an accident. I wasn't supposed to be there. There's a passage which connects the gardens to his apartments. Over by the Nubian roses – not even his guards know about it. He walks sometimes… and we talked. It's… it's an _honour_, Iulia… really I'm–"

"So you just fell in bed with him…?" she murmured, her voice suddenly changed from its previous horror to a kind of level, glaze-eyed fascination.

"Well…"

Iulia gave a heavy sigh and Alexis got the impression she was on the verge of tears. "Look… I… I… have to go. Lady Pestage is expecting me. I'll find you again soon, all right? And then we can talk…"

"Wait!_ Iulia!" _

* * *

"…You are quite correct, my friend. It is imperative we end this marriage between the Jedi and the rebellion. Without the aid of the Force, they would never have gained victory at Yavin. Take Executor and whichever officers you deem suitable – I shall ensure that Isard understands that the Bureau is entirely at your disposal. Kill the Jedi and break this treasonous alliance – its only further use to me is in its destruction."

_There could be no greater crime,_ Darth Vader mused darkly,_ than to have outlived one's usefulness._The lives of his combatants and citizenry threatened by those who opposed his rule meant nothing to the Sith Master. Palpatine had seen the rebellion as little but a convenient excuse to disband the Imperial Senate and put the final touches on his system of absolute monarchy. Not that Vader disapproved of that: maintaining the Senate had always been, in his opinion, a wasteful drain on the treasury.

Palpatine reached across to touch the shoulder plate of his apprentice, whose chair was set lower into the floor. His withered lips wore the soft, kind smile Vader had not seen there for a very long time, reminding him of an era of distant memory when he had sat next to the Supreme Chancellor and gazed out at the swirling auditorium, under the spell of that unique voice. After the treatment he received on Naboo, it shocked Vader, making him deeply wary. The pale, golden eyes told Vader the sovereign had seen something of his thoughts in the Dark Lord's aura. "You know I do this for _you_, my apprentice?"

"Master?" Vader inquired, weary of the old man's games.

"The Senate have never been a threat to me. But they would have been a very great danger to you. Your enemies would have strengthened its authority in order to fight your rule. You will not have to luxury of a united government. To that end, you must be the one to crush this rebellion. It is why I gave Tarkin command of the battle station and not you. You, my friend, have always been destined for better things." It took a second for thought to come to the Dark Lord, dizzy from the Emperor's sudden affection and concern, dark, inviting pleasure radiating from those wise eyes, so different from when he had last seen Palpatine_. Was it some new ploy of the Emperor's – or the instability of the aged – or perhaps even some form of apology? _

The ancient hand was still there, white nails scratching possessively against his armour and Vader unconsciously leaned closer. "You have become a great Sith Lord… I am… very_ proud _of you." It was wonderful; the praise warmed Vader, stirred up his insides – yet he hated it. He hated its overruling power, addictive, glorious – like a sun emerging from the stark chill of an eclipse. He did not know if it was real, if the Emperor's regard was genuine pride or simply a canny way to lull Vader to some purpose. But there had been too little affection, too little gratitude, and though the Dark Lord's spirit leapt at the praise, ready to once more cast itself entirely into its Master's keeping, the psychic wounds of so many years kept the impulse at bay, mercilessly pushing it aside. The succession was no _gift_of Palpatine's! Vader had earned it with his blood and soul. And, if necessary, he would take it from Sidious according to the old custom.

He pulled back stiffly to sit straight in his own seat and did not see the pale hand tremble in its retreat. "Thank you, my Master. It is your guidance, more than any quality of mine, which has brought me to my present circumstances." The words might have been gallantry had not the tone been so cold, matter-of-fact, and all but indifferent to the Emperor's compliments, rejecting the praise. Not quite an insult, just… empty.

* * *

Palpatine stalked back to his chambers in a towering rage. _That ungrateful wretch! _He fumed as his servants swung open the double doors of his apartments._ How dare he – how dare he behave with such… such arrogance!-? _There would be punishment – _oh yes_ – exquisite punishment. It had been impossible to react as he'd wished, before a crowded theatre. To receive such a response after Palpatine had made the momentous decision to put aside his deep reservations about his apprentice's ability to govern, lack of patience and dislike of Court; he had allowed his fondness for the Dark Lord to interfere with his judgement and _this_ was the result. Not even the beauty of the latter half of the opera had been sufficient distraction from the thwarted fury which swelled greater and greater as he sat beside his indifferent apprentice. Palpatine had refused to give Vader the satisfaction of knowing he had succeeded in wounding him. _It was not to be tolerated! _

He had sensed Vader's reserve and desired to reassure his Dark Lord, to show him that the apprentice still had, despite the Dark Lord's failings, his Emperor's favour above all other beings, but his apprentice had been distant, hadn't understood, hadn't accepted any of Sidious' words, but simply endured them as if the Emperor's affection was not an honour but some onerous task... Palpatine growled and clawed the air, causing pieces of art to fall and shatter, his possessions whirling through the air as the Emperor sagged weakly against a marble pillar, wheezing.

"Your Majesty?" there was a quiet, nervous voice behind him.

Glaring yellow eyes turned, looking up into the beautiful face of his pet. At first he wanted to claw out those lovely blue eyes, to rip the boy to bleeding shreds, to lose himself in such an ecstasy of destruction as he hardly ever permitted himself. The boy took a faltering step back. "Alexis…" Palpatine whispered in his most syrupy, seductive voice, raising a claw-like hand to beckon his servant closer.

But there was something defiant in those cerulean eyes, a spark of independence that he hadn't seen before. Yet another young man, standing there, defying him... "Sire… please…" Fear: cloudy with resentment and uncertainty._ I don't want it,_ those fearful eyes told him._ I don't want you…_

Palpatine's grotesque features split into a bitter smile. _"Kneel,"_ he spat out, smacking his rotten teeth together in vicious satisfaction when he heard the Alexis' knees hit the marble. A wrinkled ivory hand pinched the smooth skin of Alexis' cheek. He wordlessly funnelled pleasure into those nerves like the Naboo farmers who force-feed lake birds in order to devour the delicacy of their enlarged livers. The boy screamed and clutched at the Emperor's robes, delirious with the merciless deluge of feeling which invaded his senses and swept all defences before it._ "Please…!" _he moaned again and Palpatine was not sure what Alexis was begging for, only that he _was_begging – and it was wonderfully satisfying. He let go of the flushed cheek and the boy once more sprawled across the marble - his hips moving, arms flailing, utterly undone.

_"Alexis," _Palpatine settled himself comfortably on the edge of the bed, extending his arms, "_My dear one_, _come…"_ And the boy crawled across the floor, off the marble and onto the luxurious carpet, shivering uncontrollably; nerves spasming after the Emperor's brutal possession of them. He settled himself against Palpatine's legs, curling into the fabric of his robes with his head down, not daring to meet the sovereign's eyes, pliant as the Emperor undid the fastenings of his black uniform with a distracted gesture, before pulling Alexis up onto the bed.

* * *

His skin was raw with the evidence of nails scraped across his skin, his body limp and drained of any energy. Alexis did not trust his senses. The dark silk of the sheets itched as it brushed him, and his member was agonisingly sore. Trying to push the sheets away, he found his muscles heavy and atrophied. His backside hurt too, with a pain that went from dull to sharp when he attempted to move his legs and stretch the skin. Alexis felt a terrible, physical violation hollowing out his insides, as if his entire being had by hijacked, possessed. He saw again the shocked disgust on his sister's face and buried his face in one of Palpatine's luxuriant pillows. "Iulia…" he whimpered; he needed his sister, he needed someone – anyone – a fellow human being, anyone but –

"Ah, my boy, you're awake…" Palpatine's sibilant voice made Alexis twitch, awash once more in a wave of strange sensation. Bruised dots floated in front of his eyes and he could not help but arch into those fingers caressing the line of his hip, lingering with proprietorial fondness against his thigh. Arms automatically welcomed the terrible, yellow-eyed monstrosity, as if no other possibility had ever occurred to him. The stray thought drifted across his mind that the Emperor's weight on top of him was heavier than it had been – doubtless Alexis' efforts to make the abstemious sovereign eat more had succeeded. Somehow it was the feel of that newfound weight against him which pierced Alexis most; that something he had cared for, nurtured…_ loved_… had,_ had_…

_It's not his fault,_ Alexis bit his lip. _I… I disrespected him, I hurt him… other people would have died for saying what I did, taking liberties…. _Palpatine had made it very clear from the beginning that love was not part of their relationship. Blearily, Alexis tried to chase down his mind – or possibly slow down and wait for it to catch up. _"My beautiful boy…" _the Emperor's warm whisper resonated inside him, chasing away everything of the moment but Alexis' fervent wish, welling up from the bottom of his being, that his name was not Alexis but _Anakin_ and that the Emperor loved him.


	7. The Marble Steps

**ALEXIS VII: The Marble Steps**

* * *

Light singing spilled through beautifully appointed chambers, drifting over the playing of an ornamental fountain, and enclosed by walls embossed with delicate silver flowers. Lady Moteé Pestage lifted her fingers from the dial, humming along with the recording under her breath, a little off key. Her darkly green silk dress whispered as she moved toward the salon, her glossy brown hair loose and whispering down her back. She smiled softly as a handmaiden entered the room with a silver tray, the only indication of her ladyship's age in the delta of fine lines around each lovely eye. "Thank you," Moteé gracefully seated herself and hands began to twine and shape the long hair carefully into an elaborate coiffure. The lady's opaque, brown eyes met the handmaiden's pale blue gaze in the mirror, before dark lashes eclipsed the exchange. "You've become quite good at this, Julié."

"I used to watch my mother having her hair done," the handmaiden confessed, sliding a bejeweled clip into the tresses.

"I admired Volara very much," Moteé replied, opening her eyes wide and smoothing away their edges with cream, "she never lost faith – _never_. And your father, what he did to protect his family… it was a noble thing."

"Why didn't you tell me about Alexis?"

Lady Pestage turned away from the mirror and her dark eyes gazed into Iulia's with a steadfast determination that reminded Iulia of both her parents. "I wasn't aware you were related – but you can't deny this is the opportunity we have been waiting for." Moteé's voice was as well-tempered as her husband's, and Iulia found herself continually surprised by it; those same quaintly genteel speech patterns of Chommell provincial aristocracy, overlaid with a long-acquired Coruscanti lilt. Iulia used to think that particular mix unique to the Emperor's speeches. She could recognise the underlying accent now that she had spent some time on Naboo. An oddly subtle, aesthetic, and xenophobic people – that was Iulia's impression.

Iulia's fingers trembled and she took a step back. "I need to find a way to tell him… I…"

"We've discussed this," Lady Pestage's voice softened like shimmersilk over durasteel. "It's too risky. Your father killed himself so that Lord Vader would not learn the secrets his mind held. His Majesty is_ infinitely_ more dangerous than Vader in this regard. You cannot risk telling Alexis _anything_. I have known the Emperor for a long time – if they are intimate, then Palpatine will be constantly monitoring your brother's thoughts. Telling him the smallest detail of your mission could jeopardise everything. We hazard a great deal even now." Moteé reached up and touched Iulia's shoulder, strength deserting her vocal chords, leaving only a hoarse sob remaining. _"I'm sorry." _

"If it's too risky then how are you still here? If Palpatine and Vader are as powerful as you say, why haven't they seen through you?"

The vizier's wife returned her gaze to the mirror and her fingers dipped into powder. "The secret to keeping secrets from sorcerers is not to draw their attention. A strong will helps – naturally – but hardly anyone is really interested in a trophy wife who doesn't play the game. Ultimately, I fulfil a decorative and domestic function." her lips quirked with what might have been bitterness or humour.

"It must be very lonely," Iulia said softly. In the mirror she watched the cadence of breath in Lady Pestage's slender neck, shifting to the graceful lines of her clavicles and the curve of her small breasts. She admired the contrast of dark hair and pale skin, which suited the silken forest of a gown perfectly, and the consummate grace of the woman – so commanding in her restraint.

"You know how it is with these things, the longer spent establishing one's cover the more valuable one becomes. Surely you experienced something of a similar nature in previous postings?"

"A bit, yes… but there was another operative in the same office – Jejic – we… we kept each other company, it was part of our cover." It hadn't been love, but it had been companionship born of the same burden. Jejic had anchored her sanity in his warmth. She didn't know why she felt the need to share this with Moteé, who was less her fellow Alliance agent and more her superior.

"You must miss him a great deal." Moteé sighed, her earlobe drooping as she inserted an earring of dazzling linked emeralds which dangled low, almost brushing her bare shoulder. Iulia looked away. She felt instinctively that it had been a mistake to mention Jejic to Lady Pestage. The face of her other fellow agent came to mind, inky blood dribbling from his mouth; brave, cynical Ursulba swearing at her and telling her to run. And Iulia had run, as far and as fast as she could. By the time Moteé's people found her she was almost dead from exhaustion and frostbite. That fjord still pierced her nightmares, causing her to wake shivering and feverish with terror in her palace chamber. Palpatine had to be stopped – his icy talons sinking into everything good, twisting the galaxy inside out. She felt sick and almost retched. "Julié?" her ladyship's voice interrupted. That foreign-sounding name that was and yet was not her own.

"He's my brother…" Iulia croaked, barely getting the words out as her face shut down. "My _brother_…"

Two soft hands took firm hold of Iulia's shoulders. "I know what it is to betray someone you love out of duty_. I know_. But this is our chance, Julié, possibly our _only _chance. _You will do this. _You _must _do this. Otherwise everything will have been for nothing."

"Mother always told me to take care of him. That's what she said before she left that night. She came into my room and kissed me… and told me to take care of my little brother… I tried so _hard_, kept him out of everything – and now, I… _now…_ he's… he's - I can't even _say it!"_ She buried her shaking head against Moteé's shoulder and the vizier's wife put her arms around her as Iulia cried, ashamed of her tears but unable to stop as everything which had been contained for so long poured out with an acrid vengeance. She knew she would do as the older woman said. There was no other choice.

* * *

Alexis had never taken death sticks. They were illegal, after all. When he'd still been in the Imperial City Security Forces, before his transfer to the Palace Security Division, he'd participated in several arrests relating to contraband substances. He remembered their wild eyes – how pathetic they had been – asking even _officers _for credits to buy more. One woman particularly: her waxen, scarred, greenish face awful against her limp, dark hair.

He felt like that junkie, curled up in a tight ball in the middle of the Emperor's bed. Palpatine was out, of course. He never stayed over-long in the mornings. Alexis vaguely remembered that there was some ceremony – the cane was gone. That usually meant the throne room. All those steps right up to the top... he couldn't help but worry, knowing the way Palpatine clung when they walked together, leaning heavily on him whenever they went down to the gardens. The Emperor refused to limp in public but when he was alone, except for Alexis, his age and increasing fragility were both painfully obvious. He was getting thin again, too thin and too tired – and Alexis needed him, needed his magic to smooth away all the worms that wound into his heart when the sovereign wasn't there. Shifting his body, Alexis buried his nose in the sheets. He could smell him still: cloying, old-fashioned, spicy cologne, decay, and a strange whiff of ozone that made Alexis shiver and pull away.

There were… blanks in his memory and times when everything blurred as though he'd been drunk. Maybe he_ had_been drinking. That could be it. He stood, naked and trembling, and made his way across the carpet to where the decanter sat, lifting it, feeling the weight of the expensive alcohol swirling inside. It was full. But maybe one of the droids had refilled it? They came and tidied everything away – Palpatine's cloak, the dirty teacups, and the sheets – when Alexis used those things to keep track. The droids made sure that, by the time the Emperor returned in the evenings, everything was pristine. Alexis couldn't concentrate enough to interfere or even notice their silent movements most of the time. He didn't bother to pour himself a drink but drank straight from the decanter, taking pleasure in violating its aristocratic gentility.

Swearing, he wiped his mouth and wandered the apartments aimlessly, ending up running his hands over the Emperor's clothes. Rows and rows of garments worth more than Alexis could possibly earn in several lifetimes. They _felt_ like Palpatine – soft velvet, shimmersilk, brocade, and finely woven wools – but they didn't smell like him; too clean, not like their bed. He muttered obscenities into a swathe of darkly crimson robe. Things he could never say to His Imperial Majesty; filthy words that only came in the Emperor's absence, like bugs and arachnids infesting an empty dwelling. It _wasn't_ their bed, of course. Nothing was _theirs_.

The distant hiss of the tall doors to Palpatine's apartments made Alexis reel back from the robe in surprise. The Emperor had never returned early before and there was none of the almost electrical clouding of the air that marked his presence. Alexis dived down beside the bed for his trousers and rushed back into the walk-in closet, crossing the large chambers in a flash of naked alarm, silently thanking the architect for placing the Emperor's study and sitting-room between his bedroom and the entrance, while hurriedly pulling on his uniform.

"Alexis…?" his sister's voice rang out. Alexis finished doing up the fastenings on his trousers and stumbled into the lounge where Iulia stood, her face shadowed by the lilac cloak of a handmaiden. She stared at the Emperor's scarlet apartments, her blue eyes taking in the elegant statuary, the high ceiling and the profusion of antique red and black furnishings, probably much as Alexis himself had. It sometimes still caught Alexis unawares, amazed that he was living in the chambers of a will that extended to the furthest reaches of the galaxy; that such a force could be really be contained in a human shell as fragile as any other. That it could be housed, fed, and loved like any other.

"Iulia…" Alexis smiled, slightly bemusedly, his eyes a little glazed over still. "I'm… I'm so happy to see you!" But he wasn't, not entirely. It was strange to have his sister here; she was trespassing on something private – he didn't want her to see him like this. Not in these rooms, the Emperor's sacrosanct retreat from his dominions. Not even the Royal Guard were allowed inside the sovereign's private rooms; they stood outside the entrance, but were never admitted. _It was still early, wasn't it? _He looked through the wide windows and gauged the position of the sun. "Why – I mean – you shouldn't be here. We could go down to the gardens. There won't be any tourists this early… you _really _shouldn't be here." The words were awkward and so was he; unwashed and still sweaty from sleep, his blond hair sticking up in odd places, and dressed in a crumpled uniform and still reeking of Palpatine.

"S-sure…" his sister seemed equally stilted – they were like caricatures of themselves in this surreal place – both of them constrained by their surroundings. "I've been given clearance to visit – I was told His… His Majesty would be holding court." Alexis, who now spent a great deal of his time observing features hidden under the shadow of a cowl, saw that beneath her velvet hood Iulia was blushing.

"Yeah…" he gave her another slightly fixed smile, "if you just wait, I'll go and get something clean on and then we can go…"

"Sorry, it's probably a bit early for you…" her flush deepened in mortification.

"No – it's fine! I just um… hadn't bothered getting dressed yet…" he heard his own voice and cringed, rubbing the back of his suddenly itchy neck nervously. "I'll… erm… I'll just… yeah."

* * *

It had been real to Iulia before now, but not tangible. There hadn't been those intimate chambers and her brother looking as if he'd just gotten out of bed and thrown something on; _her _handsome brother standing in the lair of a monster. Everything in these rooms – so much beauty the Emperor's poisonous fingers had corroded. How could he… how could _anyone _bear to be caressed by something so depraved, so _ancient and disgusting?_ How could he suffer those horrible sulphurous eyes, the touch of a skin which, deformed as it was, could never be as loathsome as the evil soul which lay beneath? How could anyone not shrink away from such a creature?

They walked through the bright, lovely gardens together, Alexis chatting to her almost as if nothing had happened, as if it made no difference that he'd given himself to a demon whose human mask had slipped long ago. Iulia's stomach wouldn't stop turning; guilt, disgust, and despair roiling in her gut. He hadn't even realised what he'd done. Alexis moved as unaware of his surroundings, his reflexes slow, and his eyes sleepy. There were dark circles under his eyes, and to Iulia they seemed to be etched in by Palpatine's claws.

She embraced him under turquoise blossoms, trying to make him her brother once more, attempting to brush away the invisible stain of the Emperor's fingers like so much lint, leaving only Alexis behind. "I missed you so much!" _I'm so sorry – I'm sorry I wasn't there – but why didn't you tell me? Oh stars, why didn't you tell me?-! _She held the moment for as long as she could, pressing her nose into the curve of his necking, trying to commit it all to memory: the slightly blunt nose, the lips always ready to curve into a smile, the musky smell of him , the comforting closeness they used to share, _her little brother._

And when she pulled away he was gone. Still standing there, with his fond, nervy smile, but gone all the same. Beings talked about hearts breaking but all she felt was anger; a tunnelling rush of emotion that pounded against her chest until she couldn't feel anything else, battering her numb.

* * *

Ivory fingers laid a silver fork gracefully aside. There was the swirling of wine being poured and a glass offered to those same fingers. The Emperor took the crystal goblet and brought it to his thin, grey lips. The dark alcohol stained his mouth, turning that liminal skin almost pink. There was no one in the dining salon but himself and Alexis, and no one to see the young man lean across the priceless table, pushing aside the exquisite dishes, and kiss the corner of Palpatine's mouth, tongue teasing into its secretive crevices. The Emperor chuckled fondly, before the dry noise was cut off by that same eager tongue.

It fascinated him, this worshipful attention. Alexis had very little control over himself now – his body twining and twisting to the Sith Lord's pleasure, a slave to an aura he could not even sense. _Was this truly what he wanted? _Even now, Palpatine's desires still had the capacity to surprise him. It seemed so _unnecessary_, all of this tenderness, surplus comforts he had done without all his long life. Never, it seemed, had there been the leisure to explore such things, nor interest to support them. Not under his master or while training his apprentices, where control had to be so rigidly maintained, _certainly not _while Supreme Chancellor or during his first ten years as Emperor. Yet now he was luxuriating in it. His apprentice was a full Sith Lord; his plans had reached fruition, everything transpired according to his designs – why should he not assuage his loneliness a little with this simple, affectionate creature?

_"Master…"_ Alexis whispered in his ear, nose nuzzling the Emperor's caved-in cheek. _Nothing_ compared to that honorific; not Excellency, not Highness, not even Majesty – Palpatine wanted to be called _Master_ from almost before he could remember; there was an infinity of longing contained in those two syllables. Memory arched with Alexis above him… He had wanted _Anakin_like this. Perhaps the word was only in his imagination, yet he could not help but flinch.

The boy eased off Palpatine's lap, allowing him space to breathe. "Are you all right, Majesty? Shall I call–?"

"No, there is no need." The Emperor's voice was as authoritative as ever, but the lamp-like eyes were filled with an indefinable emotion. _Was this what his Anakin had looked like? _He couldn't remember. It had been so long ago. Almost twenty years. And he had been old and homely even then, embroiled in the trappings and responsibilities of his office, tired from secretly running both sides of a war, plump and weary from too much time at his desk pouring over state papers and legislation; devoting himself to maintaining his benevolent persona and concealing himself from the Jedi, and in no position to make any such overtures to his possession with risking its loss. _And now…? _His apprentice would_ never_… and even if, by some miracle, it were possible – Palpatine could not afford such weakness in front of his Dark Lord.

That was why he had the boy, was it not? Alexis had retreated to his own seat, gazing at the Emperor expectantly. "Sire… I haven't had a chance to tell you, my sister, she–"

"It will resolve itself, my boy, have no fear." Had he not ordered Jade to track down the woman? The smoothly reassuring voice was spoiled somewhat by the Emperor's impatient gesture, which silenced Alexis. Palpatine had no interest in Iulia Ts'umin or her whereabouts – she could be a slave in Hutt Space for all he cared… which brought him to the matter of the Hutt dominions in the first place. Something would have to be done about them eventually. After the Clone Wars, garrisoning the Outer Rim had proved impossible. There had never been the resources to support a permanent occupation of the Rim and the Hutt Clans knew it, as did the rebel ingrates who profited by Palpatine's inability the establish a firm grip on the outer systems. Such places had never abided by Republic law and saw no reason to behave any differently toward Imperial edicts. He had hoped that Tarkin's project would resolve that issue, but it had been destroyed. He couldn't _stand_ the idea of those wastrels, pirates, ideologues, and scum _laughing_ at him. Well, he would _deal _with their pitiful rebellion and then he would _break_the power of the Hutts which had sheltered them. Lancing those boils ought to provide the funds to maintain a proper presence in the outlying systems and, once such a presence was established, it would more than repay itself in tax revenue.

_Why is it so difficult for my servants to exterminate one Jedi and a few farmers and deserters? _He slipped into a half-trance, his vision traversing the darkness between stars, seeking out that errant sensitive who had thrown in his lot with Mothma's rebels. But his power could not gain purchase on the bright spec which seemed to dance just out of his reach, familiar and yet inaccessible, like a word on the tip of his tongue. This was no Jedi of old, but something else. Something… _elusive_. Palpatine ground his teeth in anger. He had no fondness for mysteries.

The young man beside him leaned forward, his fingers closing around the frail digits which had begun to clench in irritation, lips lovingly stroking the white knuckles, bringing the Emperor's thoughts back to his immediate surroundings, yellow eyes blinking tiredly. "Perhaps… we should retire, Your Majesty?" Yes, his catamite had no secrets or agenda, plucked from his unimportant existence without consequence, the happy result of some captain's malice. The Emperor affectionately reached his other hand up to brush through that supremely tactile blond hair; a lovely, private pet to warm his cold bed and his aged flesh.

The journey back to the Emperor's apartments was a slow one. Palpatine took Alexis' arm; in a few days it would be his seventy-seventh birthday and he felt those years keenly that evening as they walked the upper corridors of the Imperial Palace. Sunset gilded the marble corridors; the perpetual haze of pollution turned the skies above Imperial Centre to a profusion of splendid colours. When they reached his rooms at last, he was grateful to sit down again, resting his weight against Alexis. And it seemed entirely natural that Alexis should tenderly remove his outer cloak and that his generous mouth should trail down the nape of the Emperor's pale neck, causing Palpatine's eyes to flutter closed as he leaned against his tall, young lover, the two of them sitting on top of the coverlets. Soon the kisses reached his temples and the sovereign sighed into the strong hands which began to gently massage in turn the tender muscles of his malformed forehead and arthritic hands.

_"Master…" _That word again, sweet and adoring. He had never mentioned it to Alexis, nor – as far as Palpatine was aware – had it been uttered in Alexis' presence. Perhaps Lord Vader had addressed him thus at the opera? No, even if that were so… surely Alexis, well-coached by now in etiquette by Lady Pestage, would never have thought to do so. It was his own desire slipping through Alexis' lips to slice into the Emperor like a knife, and he gasped as if cut.

The boy murmured endearments, reaching around to support Palpatine's collarbone, pulling him closer, and the Emperor felt suffocated, as if he were caught in a snare. _"Oh Master…" _

It would be so easy, so _terrifyingly easy_ to be seduced into fantasy by those intoxicating words. Strange that he had never considered the possibility; his breath grew laboured, yet he could not summon the energy to escape the intimate ministrations of his affectionate captor. "No, no…" the Emperor all but whimpered, the strength fled from his voice_. _

"I don't mind," his toy whispered back, his voice muffled as he leaned in to undo the clasps at Palpatine's neck with his teeth. "_No one will know_… please, Master, you can call me anything you like…" Those captivating blue eyes and wild blond hair; the beautiful, confidant smile… But this was a doll, a pretty, Force-blind _nothing_. He must put a stop to this, he –

_"Anakin…" _the name was a ripped scab, open and painful, yet carrying with it a curious sense of release. It escaped into the space between them, mortifying Palpatine with its force – hanging on the air like a spell.

* * *

Alexis stared at the Emperor. His thoughts felt heavy and cumbersome, messy and undefined – unravelling as he tried to remember them – and it took him a moment to orient himself. Palpatine was dozing on the silk sheets, the moonlight turning his chalky skin faintly blue. Alexis cast his fingers down the Emperor's chest, planting a fond kiss on his ivory shoulder. Many beings would find the ancient tangle of breath and limbs grotesque, but he was so accustomed to Palpatine's disfigured body, that to see him lying there, in the dark nest of sheets where they had just had surely just had sex, was oddly endearing. It was an accomplishment even to see him so carelessly lethargic. Usually he burrowed under the covers or donned his sleeping robe, or was disinclined to undress at all; always conscious of his ugliness.

One golden eye flickered open, followed by the second. A small, white hand reached up to brush Alexis' face. They weren't like claws at all. They were soft, the nails trimmed and neat; the bones light and delicate, almost like those of a bird. Palpatine's hands only appeared the way they did because of the arthritis which gnarled them. They were lovely, in their own way, definitely his best feature, aside from that hypnotic, sunflare gaze. Alexis vowed he would never give them cause to hurt him again. _He would be good. _He would be everything His Majesty needed him to be.

"I'll make some tea and bring your robe," he said, kissing Palpatine one last time before climbing off the bed and stretching, pulling on a pair of trousers, and ambling into the other room. He took his time, taking a drink of his own while waiting for the water to boil (the Emperor said it wasn't the same unless you made it the traditional way). He added the dry _tisane _and went searching for the sovereign's dressing-gown, leaving the pot to steep. It appeared one of the droids had determined the gown needed washing, as it wasn't anywhere obvious, so Alexis went to take a clean one from the dressing-closet.

All of a sudden there was a hiss and the noise of booted feet drumming against the floor. Alexis leapt up, only to duck back in horror when he saw beings with heavy blaster rifles in the other room. There was nothing he could do. Holding his breath, he backed into the rows of imperial garments, trying to make as little noise as possible. He could hear the noise of the intruders checking rooms, the terse, cracking noise of low voices calling _"Clear!"_ His pistol was somewhere back here with his own clothes_. If he could just–_

"Emperor Palpatine," intoned a woman's voice against an awful thumping and the dull sounds of a scuffle. _How did they get in, why did the guards not stop them?_ "You are hereby placed under arrest for crimes against the free sentients of the galaxy and crimes against the state." He had heard her voice before – _why did it seem so familiar? _Alexis continued edging backward, feeling for his case. His head felt icy clear for the first time in weeks. "This action is taken under the authority of the Alliance to Restore the Republic as the legitimate representative of the galaxy's peoples. We relieve the Imperial Government of its powers. A provisional, revolutionary government is announced pending free elections to be supervised by the A.R.R. –" _Are they transmitting this? Why weren't they all blasted to the floor by Palpatine's sorceries?_

_There _– his fingers closed around the catch and carefully unhooked it, reaching inside for his gun. _Thank the stars it was a blaster pistol and didn't need to be loaded with slugs. _"What have almost twenty years of your rule brought us, Your Majesty? Near two decades of a government which has shown nothing but contempt for the citizens it nominally serves – decades of oppression, of our once thriving political culture turned into the plaything of one man. You have waged a dirty war against your own peoples: undesirables tortured, murdered or simply made to disappear. The entire planet of Alderaan with all its sentients and non-sentients alike – _destroyed_– crimes so nakedly heinous as to be indefensible."

There was hissing, liquid noise, like spit. Alexis used the ensuing violence to draw his pistol, crawling closer, muffled by thick, ceremonial garments. "Gag him. Gentle-beings of the galaxy, you look upon the face of evil, see how thin its lips are, how pale, ruined and pockmarked it is up close? How _monstrous?_" Alexis halted, close enough to see through a small gap between two robes and the blood drained from his face. He couldn't see Palpatine, but he could see the invaders, terrorists disguised in the black of the Palace Security Divisions. And the blond woman who was speaking, her profile cold and bright with vengeance.

_It was his mother:_ Volara Ts'umin stood there, wearing dark regulation slacks and holding – of all things – a large, furry reptile in her arms. The pistol trembled in his hand. There_ was _a way they could have gotten in without alerting anyone. Through passage which led up from the gardens. But that meant… the codes… _Iulia_… She had promised, she had _promised _him…!

He unhitched the safety catch, long fingers trembling. For some reason, the contempt of the old Naboo woman swam into his head, Drav attacking her for peacefully sitting under a statue; a weapon which could destroy planets… _Alderaan_ – all of those people gone as if they'd never existed; an auditorium full of clapping beings singing _Glory to the Empire. _He didn't believe in it any more, he realised – he probably never had. It was just the way things were. But he couldn't bear to think of Palpatine hurt, of that precious being gagged and broken, in the hands of his enemies.

"Have you anything to say before you meet your death and we usher in a new era for the Republic?" _I could never betray you, Your Majesty. I'd_ _shoot anyone who did!_ Tears stung Alexis, leaking from his eyes and down his cheeks as he stepped softly forward, ready to fire. He found it impossible to hate his mother at that moment, too stunned by her physical reality and resemblance after so many years. Years of furious resentment melted in simple amazement that here was his _mother_. _I can't do it… I… can't… _

No one was looking in his direction; all eyes were on the Emperor. He looked like a caged, naked beast, his eyes burning in rage, snarling through his bonds and, as a rebel ripped off the gag, he bared his yellowed, rotten teeth at Volara. He did not break his stare, and an awful smile came to his desiccated lips. He was glaring straight into her eyes when he said the words: "Kill the creature."

Alexis fired.

Volara Ts'umin turned her head, blue eyes wide, mouth open as she recognised Alexis, grey-blond hair tumbling loose as the dead reptile fell from her hands. Power roared into the room like water breaking through a dam and everyone was screaming. It poured into Alexis and he kept firing, eyes wild, gunning down the dozen beings curled up on the floor in prostrate agony, as lightning arched through the air, filled with a terrible, inhuman fury that drowned out everything else and painted his vision crimson until his mind slipped away beneath the wrath that impelled him on in a storm of blaster fire.

* * *

There was nothing to say afterwards. Alexis could only stare as the bodies were taken away by the Emperor's guards, the congealing blood only a shade darker than their armour. One of them even saluted him. His mother had four laser wounds when her limp form was carried out like a sack of meat. And those rebels he didn't know, they had families, didn't they? _People who loved them._ Had he really killed them all? He could hardly remember. It seemed impossible. "My sister…" he gasped, falling to his knees beside Palpatine – now dressed in austere black. _"Please…!"_

The glittering eyes reached into his mind and ripped up his memories of sharing the gardens with Iulia, and scattered them in disarray, until Alexis almost couldn't recall her upturned face or his mother sitting by his bedside, just the ache of their absence that ate him alive. It left him reeling and scared – was his sister dead or missing? He couldn't quite… "She is _dead_, Alexis." Palpatine said mildly, betraying light surprise. "Or if she is not, she soon will be. It hardly matters." Palpatine was reading the preliminary intelligence reports – more were still coming in. Anyone else would have been distraught after the prospect of being assassinated, but the Emperor only seemed to _gain _composure from his ordeal. There was a fiery, satisfied pleasure in his mystic eyes, which Alexis had never seen before, especially when he gazed at the corpses of the rebels.

"It – it was my fault… I didn't know… I…" _What had he done?_ He'd done _something,_ an accident – _a terrible thing_ – there had been bodies on the floor, their eyes open and their faces contorted in pain. He'd… _the steps_… he'd shown Iulia the passage and she'd…

"And it was you who bravely rescued me and executed those rebel traitors," Palpatine patted him fondly on the head reassuringly, yet not really paying him much attention. "I would say you more than made up for your mistake, foolish though it was. You've done well, Alexis – I am not angry with you." And he leaned down and kissed Alexis' cheek affectionately before turning back to the holo-reports as if nothing had happened – is if anything were capable of continuing on as before, and Alexis found himself automatically accepting both the kiss and dismissal, pure habit taking control when every other faculty was paralyzed with despair.

* * *

Lord Vader's thoughts were stormy as he strode through the sumptuous halls of the palace. He had almost become Emperor last night – almost lost his mentor. He did not know whether he was angrier at Palpatine's survival or at the assassins who'd dared attempt to usurp a death that was the Dark Lord's to claim by ancient law. He felt cheated of both the throne and the attempt – all the more so since the leader of the assassins had apparently been a woman who'd escaped him years ago. _I refuse to feel any guilt in this matter, _he growled to himself. He had been assigned different duties long ago; others had taken over that trail. _I could have searched harder – I could have… _Sith Lord clenched his gauntleted fists. If she had not already been killed by the Emperor, he would gladly have tortured Volara Ts'umin and her associates for daring to touch what was his and his alone.

He did not have an appointment with the Emperor, but he knew Sidious would see him, if only to emphasise his continued supremacy over his Dark Lord. Beneath his mask, Vader smiled bitterly at the thought and slowed his stride. Though often mercurial, there were certain things one could _always_rely upon Palpatine for.

It was as he stood, casting a pooling shadow on the light marble, that he caught sight of a black-clad figure standing on the edge of a balcony. It was, he knew, a spot where Palpatine was fond of meditating in the evenings, gazing down at the beautiful canyon of the Grand Corridor far below, and – for a moment – he thought it _was_the Emperor, his abyssal aura blurred and distorted as though a carnival mirror. Vader's booted his feet carried him forward, curious.

It was a young man in a non-descript uniform – the servant he had noticed at the opera. The man was not, as the Sith Lord had first thought, standing _on_ the balcony at all, but perched precariously on the ledge, facing away from the long fall, towards Vader. His signature in the Force was fascinating and obscene, like a fly twitching feebly in the deadly cocoon of an arachnid, its life only detectable by muffled, desperate buzzing. It was jarringly wrong and, for the second time, the Sith Lord wondered idly just what the young man was guilty of to deserve such a thorough annihilation of self. He couldn't shake the feeling that he'd seen him somewhere before the opera, that there was something_ important_about him which he, Vader, had overlooked.

"How strange," the young man muttered, blue, watery eyes taking in the Dark Lord with an equally dispassionate fascination, "you really are like an orange-tongued lizard, aren't you?"

It was such an odd thing to say that Vader found himself speechless. There was none of the customary fear in the man's voice, nor any suggestion of impudence. Then the Sith Lord took in the implication of that tenuous seat on the balcony's thin, ornamental railing. "I don't follow," he said slowly, feeling no impulse to rush forward, yet unable to leave him to his fate.

"A death omen," the man smiled weakly, his blond hair fluttering in the open air, his gaze glassy and half-unseeing. It was likely he had disappointed the Emperor in some way, perhaps taking his own life rather than facing Palpatine's displeasure one final time. Vader had known his own subordinates to do the same, on occasion. It was considered the more honourable course of action by many of the Core aristocracy. _Yes, that was where he had seen this man before… the son of Governor Ts'umin… _He ought to have recognised him, with that incident in his thoughts just earlier. It was unfortunate that the son should attempt to follow his father in such a way. Ts'umin shook his head. "I thought that at the opera. How funny."

"That is hardly fair," the Dark Lord pointed out matter-of-factly, "considering my vocation."

The young man nodded. "I suppose so. Could… could you give the Emperor a message for me, my Lord?"

Vader said nothing, merely waited, oddly mesmerised by the spectacle. He realised the Emperor's magic didn't want this young man to die; tugging persistently at Ts'umin's mind. It was taking all of the young man's willpower to remain on the ledge; Ts'umin's shoulders were shaking and his breathing was laboured. Perhaps the Dark Lord ought to stop him? He took two steps toward the railing.

Ts'umin took his silence for consent. "Tell His Majesty… tell him I'm sorry I could no longer be of use to him and that… when I see Anakin… I'll tell him everything that was meant for him and… and not me."

The blue eyes, somewhat dishevelled blond hair, full lips, and tall, athletic build; the way Dangor had glared at him – an ire inappropriate towards someone else's servant – Palpatine's possessive aura, smeared all over Ts'umin until his own spirit was little but a whisper… All of it fell into place just as Ts'umin slipped backwards into the chasm of the Grand Corridor. Vader cried out, rushing forward, trying to pull him back with the Force, but his grasping gloves met empty air and Ts'umin was little but a fast disappearing spec far below and the ghost of a scream.

He clung to the balcony in shock, trying to process what he'd just witnessed. He could sense rather that see when the young man hit the ground, a small blotting in the Force like snuffing out a candle. Far more discernible was the horror and dismay of those below, at the mess of Ts'umin's corpse.

The Dark Lord could hardly credit it. The whole incident was surreal, impossible. Could his Master _really_have kept such a servant? It seemed ludicrous. Sidious, who never allowed anyone close, who viewed tenderness as a tool; never seeming to require anything for himself beyond the power to which he had devoted his existence. Vader had long supposed his Master's sexuality subsumed by his sorcery; aroused only by the heights of Dark Side possession. He'd never considered that Palpatine could ever be attracted to anything as banal as appearance or gender… that he could feel the same needs as any other being.

Yet he did. And he'd used this young man for that purpose. It explained the encroachment of the Emperor's aura; it didn't have to be_ pain_ funnelled into Ts'umin's spirit which took him beyond the suggestible state of weak-minded individuals who associated with a powerful Force-user. How long had this been the state of affairs? Was this the only one, or had the Emperor concealed many such men from Vader? The Dark Lord would never have believed it of him. _I'll tell him everything that was meant for him and… and not me_…

Lord Vader stood on the balcony for several hours, long after what remained of Alexis Ts'umin was cleared away.

* * *

"I followed up on your lead," Mara Jade's voice was as collected as ever. Moteé couldn't help but like the young woman for her professionalism, though the river of copper hair was equally attractive. She was useful, at any rate. "It turns out you were right. He didn't know where Iulia Ts'umin has gone to ground, but Jejic started spilling all sorts of interesting things once I turned him over to Isard..."

"I'm glad to have been of assistance to you," Lady Pestage smiled quietly, pouring Jade a second cup of tea. "It helps assuage the guilt I feel about the fact that_ I _was used to get to His Majesty. When one of my handmaidens reported some of her clothes and access ID missing, I'm afraid I didn't take it at all seriously…"

"You won't make the same mistake again," Jade said confidently, but with a blank seriousness beyond her years; a voice which had learned that beings who repeated their mistakes seldom lived long.

"No, you can be sure of that." They drank in silence for a while and then Moteé said abruptly, "You know the thing that shocks me most? The naivety of it all."

"What do you mean?" The Emperor's Hand raised a coppery eyebrow, setting down her cup and leaning back in her chair, listening to the peaceful sound of the fountain playing.

"My husband told me about the message they tried to broadcast: a lot of nonsense about setting up a provisional government and ending the imperial system. They can't really have supposed that the Empire will end with His Majesty, can they?" Moteé frowned, resting his chin on one hand. Jade shook her head, her gaze darkening as she thought about such individuals and what she would do to them given the opportunity. Lady Pestage wanted to laugh – the answer was_ right there_ and no one had the wit to see it. "And why attempt it one of the rare times the Emperor's heir is on Imperial Centre? All they would have accomplished would be assisting Lord Vader onto the throne."

"You don't think–?" Mara Jade's eyes were wide, her lithe form suddenly alert.

"Do I believe Lord Vader was responsible? No, I've known him for many years and I feel certain such a ruse is not in his character. I believe it's more likely that beings who would prefer to see him on the throne persuaded the rebels they would be able to do just the opposite and recreate the Republic in the event of the Emperor's death. Either way, I am shocked at their credulity and unsurprised therefore at the failure of their cabal."

She bid farewell to the Emperor's agent and turned on her heel, moving to sit on the rim of the fountain. It had been Lady Padmé's idea to bring the waterfalls of Theed into her Coruscant apartment and the soft noise and cool feel of it always soothed Moteé. She crumpled the skirts of her dress in her hands. There would be other opportunities. Volara's failure was unfortunate. The vizier's wife had told Jade the truth: it was essential to act when Lord Vader was resident on Imperial Centre and not only did an Alliance assassination place suspicion elsewhere, it would also have provided the Dark Lord with strong support and a mandate of vengeance. Moteé believed in the Empire, not Palpatine, and she had known Anakin Skywalker for long enough to know that he still possessed certain of those qualities which her old mistress praised so long ago. And the rebels… the rebels were dead in any case.

Lady Pestage knew that she ought to have disposed with Iulia Ts'umin. It was the sensible course of action. Yet she found herself incapable of doing so, continuing to hide the Alliance agent within her retinue, regardless of the danger and despite the fact that a lie bound them together - Iulia's continued, mistaken belief that Moteé was honest in her contact with the Rebellion. Yes, she had faith in Vader, but watching her husband and Palpatine had taught her much. There was a rustling beside her as the handmaiden seated herself at Moteé's side. Both women's eyes were down-turned, but their hands found each other and it was Lady Pestage's hand which squeezed the tightest.

* * *

The Imperial Throne was set atop an immense flight of darkly marbled steps; a great stone gap between subjects and sovereign – such a vast distance that it was only through the eyes of the Force that Palpatine could see those lesser mortals clustering below. Courtiers and suppliants only ascended part way up, with only a favoured few permitted to set foot on the crowning dais from which the Emperor presided.

It was from that remote seat that Palpatine sensed Alexis' death. Nor could he acknowledge it, mid-way through receiving a deputation from Eriadu. His fingers trembled slightly and those observing him might have said he looked truly grieved at the plight of the Eriaduan citizenry being related by its governor – so much so that that proud man would subsequently tell all his acquaintances who would listen, just how _moved_His Majesty had been by his courtly speech.

Palpatine kept all of his appointments that day; taking care to show himself capable and uninjured by his ordeal. He received his apprentice later than most: Vader at his best – all raging thoughts and dark desire. And the Emperor welcomed the distraction, reluctant to retreat to his empty chambers. "I am relieved to see you are unhurt, my Master." The Dark Lord's vocabulator rumbled. Palpatine inwardly sneered at the comment, highly sceptical of the merits of its sincerity.

"Thank you, my friend," he nodded, accepting the words with what would once have been considered a charmingly gracious smile – the effect ruined by his blackened teeth.

"Please accept my condolences at your loss." Vader's tone was flat and indecipherable.

The Emperor's golden stare narrowed, "My…_ loss?_" he echoed vaguely, with the unflinching and perplexed stare of the consummate dissimulator he was. _The Dark Lord_ _could not possibly know! _

"Indeed, Master." There was a laconic purr to those words that disturbed Palpatine immensely. "I refer to the son of the late Governor Ts'umin. He asked me to deliver a message to you, if you wish to hear it?" A dark plume of anticipation rose in the Force.

"Oh?" Palpatine spat the syllable haughtily – utterly disdainful – but underneath it he was reeling with shock. _How had they come to know each other, was it Vader who had Alexis killed? _But below even that was a deep distress that would surely have shown in his face had not it already been bleached of colour.

"He asked me to convey his apologies to you, Master, for his departure." Vader's visor shone with the same sleek obsidian polish as the throne.

"How thoughtful of him," the Sith Master replied coldly, anger rising around him. He could see Alexis in Vader's thoughts: a bright, momentary presence illuminated by realisation. _Oh, what his apprentice must think of him!_ How pathetic he must surely appear – _how weak!_ But Palpatine refused to show his apprentice an inch of the pain he felt, nor the merest _suggestion _of attachment towards the dead boy.

"Yes," said the Dark Lord carefully, "and if you have no further engagements this evening, Master, I thought I might keep you company, if such a thing would amuse you?" It would have caused the Emperor overwhelming pleasure at any other time. But now he had to fight the urge to automatically throw the invitation back in Vader's face. He felt sure he was being mocked with this false courtesy. In his distress, it took Palpatine too long to answer and thus he failed to notice the proffering of the leather-gloved hand until it was right under his nose. "I know," the lord said quietly, "that it would please me."

The Emperor's glare softened and, although he did not take the hand, he caressed it fondly with one of his own. With the dissipation of his anger, an exceptional weariness took hold of him, and the thought drifted across his mind that he was far too old for such things. How _endearing _his Anakin was, even after so many years – his beloved possession still. But Sidious' heart was empty; exhausted and sick. He had no reserves left to him and he was terrified of allowing Vader close when in such a state, for fear of making some great and binding mistake. It might even be a ruse, this affection, his apprentice inspired to continue where Volara Ts'umin left off. "I… should like that, my friend," he replied softly. "But perhaps another evening – I find that in yesterday's commotion I have… neglected a great many things."

"Of course, my Master." The fingers fell sharply, starkly away, and it was only when Vader had gone, and he had retreated to his solitary chambers, that Emperor Palpatine found that he was blinking back tears.


End file.
